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All Politics is Local V2
Author: TriSec    Date: 03/02/2013 14:06:15

Good Morning!

Why, I have a date with my wife this evening! Javi is off to a concert with his grandpa, and shall be spending the night over in Melrose. The benefits of having a working musician parent...it's the Melrose Symphony's "Children's Concert", but unlike other children's concerts you may have heard about, this one has a strict age limit and dress code, and they play *real* classical music, not just Peter and the Wolf and other kid-friendly things. Javi was old enough to go last year, but we had a schedule conflict and couldn't make it. So Javi gets a road trip, and Mrs. TriSec and I will have an evening to ourselves. Imagine that!
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6 comments (Latest Comment: 03/03/2013 01:16:38 by Raine)

The Sword of Damacles has Fallen
Author: BobR    Date: 03/01/2013 13:49:08

It's here. Starting today, the fiscal manifestation of a dysfunctional Congress becomes real. Created over a year ago as a Sword of Damacles to ensure a sensible budget was created (voted into place by congressional Republicans), the "sequestor" was meant to be the financial equivalent of mutual assured destruction of nuclear weaponry.

The trigger was actually cocked last year when the Congress once again failed to agree on a budget that reduced the deficit the required amount (Republicans objected to tax increases and cuts in military spending; Democrats objected to cuts in domestic programs and "entitlements"). As the ball dropped in Times Square on New Years Eve, the sequestor took effect. Republicans were wise enough to understand the implications of immediate tax increases on everyone and finally allowed a bill to go through to retroactively prevent the tax increases on everyone making below $400K (although the FICA tax cut was allowed to expire). They punted the spending cuts down the road for two months.
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55 comments (Latest Comment: 03/01/2013 22:29:16 by Mondobubba)

Help me out here...
Author: Raine    Date: 02/28/2013 14:43:59

There are some quarters out there saying that the The Voting Rights Act of 1965 and its protections are obsolete in the post-Jim Crow era. This act has been around for a mere 48 years and people want to see it gone. According to some people, It's out of date, out of touch and racism may be no more or less rampant in the south.
Chief Justice John Roberts, a vocal skeptic of the use of race in all areas of public life, cited a variety of statistics that showed starker racial disparities in some aspects of voting in Massachusetts than in Mississippi. Then he asked the government’s top Supreme Court lawyer whether the Obama administration thinks “the citizens in the South are more racist than citizens in the North.
One Justice went so far as to say that the VRA represents racial entitlement:[/url
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60 comments (Latest Comment: 03/01/2013 00:56:20 by Will in Chicago)

Rx for a Sick Planet
Author: BobR    Date: 02/27/2013 14:03:12

The age old question of "are we alone in the universe?" sparks interesting debates, theories, and discussions. Does life exist on other planets? Is it intelligent? Is it more advanced than us? Have they destroyed their ecosystem like we are in the process of doing and looking for other planets where they can start over?

That latter question is one that has popped up in various science fiction movies, and for good reason. The ecological movement of the 70s resulted in the EPA and big steps towards reducing and cleaning up pollution. Nowadays, the altering of our climate via pollution (greenhouse gasses) has become so politicized that even good science has been demonized and sacrificed upon the altar of political posturing.
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67 comments (Latest Comment: 02/27/2013 21:53:16 by wickedpam)

Ask a Vet
Author: TriSec    Date: 02/26/2013 11:24:12

Good Morning.

Today is our 4,160th day in Afghanistan.

We'll start this morning as we always do - with the latest casualty figures from our ongoing war, courtesy of Antiwar.com:

US Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 2,177
Other Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 1,081

We find this morning's cost of war passing through:

$1, 427, 314, 700, 000 .00

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68 comments (Latest Comment: 02/26/2013 22:57:11 by Mondobubba)

Monday stub
Author: BobR    Date: 02/25/2013 14:00:02

Someone slept in this morning after staying up late watching the Oscars. Blog to come...
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49 comments (Latest Comment: 02/26/2013 04:41:01 by clintster)

Co-exsist.
Author: velveeta jones    Date: 02/24/2013 14:48:13

Finally! A state that is brave enough to tell American school children the truth. Let's give Oklahoma (where the wind comes sweeping down the lane) a big hand for teaching the truth! No, not that Columbus didn't discover America. No, not that our ancestors sadistically tortured the natives in order to steal the land they live on. No, I refer to the fact that dinosaurs roamed the Earth with humans.

Remember when you were a child learning the states and each time you got to the wooden puzzle piece of Oklahoma on the USA map, you'd pause and hold the state like a gun and say "bang, bang"? Well, that is kinda what the state is currently doing to the children. Yes, thanks to the heroic efforts of two state legislators, Gus Blackwell and Josh Breechen (both Republican) who introduced House Bill 1674 that would forbid teachers from penalizing students who turn in papers attempting to debunk almost universally accepted scientific theories such as biological evolution and anthropogenic (human-driven) climate change. This includes the FACT that human's rode dinosaurs to and from church, the Walmart and back to church.
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4 comments (Latest Comment: 02/24/2013 22:25:45 by BobR)

Grinding to a halt
Author: TriSec    Date: 02/23/2013 14:04:17

http://www.phawker.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/nero-jpg-749636.jpg


Ah, Nero. Remind you of any Speaker of the House you might know?

March 1 is coming up awful quick, but the GOP and much of the House is still in recess.
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6 comments (Latest Comment: 02/24/2013 07:31:27 by Raine)

Teh Stoopit
Author: BobR    Date: 02/22/2013 13:50:09

In his State of the Union speech, one of President Obama's objectives for America was to provide access to education for as many people as possible. From Head Start to affordable college loans, making America smarter is worthy goal. It will be hard as long as we (as a nation) celebrate celebrity (and notoriety) and sport over intelligence. There's also that pesky Republican drive to make Americans suspicious of science.

We need to do something, because boy - are we stupid.
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76 comments (Latest Comment: 02/23/2013 04:03:14 by Will in Chicago)

My 2 per-Cents
Author: Raine    Date: 02/21/2013 15:00:08

August 2011:
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he got "98 percent" of what he wanted in the final deal to raise the debt ceiling.

"When you look at this final agreement that we came to with the White House, I got 98 percent of what I wanted. I'm pretty happy," Boehner said in an interview with CBS News on Monday evening.

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67 comments (Latest Comment: 02/22/2013 01:44:15 by trojanrabbit)

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