About Us
Mission Statement
Rules of Conduct
 
Name:
Pswd:
Remember Me
Register
 

This was a Hate Crime
Author: Raine    Date: 02/09/2009 13:28:26

Do you remember Jim David Adkisson? He was the man who stormed the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church last July and killed two people and wounded six others during the presentation of a children's musical.

He admitted that what he did was a hate crime.
Continue reading...

105 comments (Latest Comment: 02/10/2009 03:49:27 by Raine)

Stimulate this!
Author: velveeta jones    Date: 02/08/2009 14:45:20

While the Senate continues to nit-pick the stimulus package, the average American struggles to pay bills, find jobs, get insurance, find someone to watch their kids on the barter system…. all while they fight over “pork” and how much or little tax cuts they might give us. It’s disgusting.

Most of the “pork” the Republicans want thrown out is the same old stuff they always want out. They ask themselves this question “does this money benefit, in any way, the poor, minorities, women’s health or gay people”? If the answer is “yes” then slash away!!

I swear, these bastards are cold-hearted.

Food stamp-programs which continue to be large on the Republican’s slashing target, and sadly, are not even offered in this package, are considered to be well worth the money. An independent provider of research, Moody’s Economy, a division of Moody’s Analytics (I respect anyone that can put the word ass next to economy) recently said that one of the fastest ways to infuse money into the economy would be to expand the food stamp program. Predicting that for every dollar spent on the food-stamp program $1.73 is generated throughout the economy.

Let me explain it in simple terms so our friends on the R side of the blog reading public can understand this:
You see, poor people, single working mothers and fathers and the elderly spend money on things like, um, food. They often pay a lower tax rate on the food. Thereby, they can afford even more food for their family.

The study showed that families that live on unemployment and food-stamps spend that money right away, thus benefiting the economy faster, and even create that “trickle down” that Raygun was always yapping on about. Groceries purchased with that dollar quickly go back to pay grocery employees, to the trucks that deliver, to the distributors and all the way back to the farmers that grew the food.
Continue reading...

41 comments (Latest Comment: 02/09/2009 02:16:55 by trojanrabbit)

For want of a baby
Author: TriSec    Date: 02/07/2009 13:13:20

Good Morning!

Last night, my Cub Scout Pack had our Blue & Gold banquet...which is the annual party that the Cub Scouts put on every February in honor of the birthday of the Boy Scouts of America on February 8. (We turn 99 years old this year!)

Naturally, as your blog Cubmaster, I was in charge of the festivities last night, and a fine time was had by all.

But....I might not have been there at all. Sure, I've been involved in Scouting since I joined as a youth myself *a few years ago*, but these days any adult in the movement without an actual child of his own in the program is often looked at askance. Why is he there, anyway?

Fortunately, our son is 7 years old this year, and is a happy Wolf Cub Scout.

We're lucky to have him at all.

Mrs. TriSec and I were married in 1996...for our first year or so of marriage, we were perhaps overly cautious in certain areas, taking the necesary steps to prevent an unplanned pregnancy while we were busy being newlyweds and setting up a home and getting our finances settled.

Eventually, we tried to "get it done". As the months passed, and no babies were forthcoming, we gradually realized that something wasn't working correctly. We actually went through two fertility doctors...our first round was with a quack/clinic that had a multitude of problems....not the least of which was the attitude of the doctors that thought Mrs. TriSec was crazy. After we quit the clinic, news broke that they were being investigated for insurance fraud.

So that brings us to our second clinic. We chose Boston IVF, fortunately right around the corner from home here in Waltham.

Advanced Reproductive Therapies are quite a thing, with a multitude of programs and options to choose from. After our diagnosis, some medical things were discovered with Mrs. TriSec that actually needed surgery to correct. Your poor TriSec was diagnosed with uhh....low counts and weak swimmers (probably the result of a bout of Chicken Pox I had at age 21), and that contributed to our lack of babies.

At the time, we chose the GIFT process, which was minimally invasive and had a reasonable success rate (25-30%). Alas, after several rounds, there was still no baby....so rather than try for more complex or advanced therapies, Mrs. TriSec and I decided that it was not to be, and we moved on.

By now you know "the rest of the story"...we spent another 18 months investigating adoption agencies, then going through the arduous approval process, and finally making it to Manila to bring home Javier in 2002.

Long story for a Saturday morning....why am I telling you this?

Because I'm still at a loss for words...and now the doctor is under investigation.

This is wrong on so many levels, I don't know where to begin.


 
11 comments (Latest Comment: 02/08/2009 03:14:38 by TriSec)

Dante's Inferno
Author: BobR    Date: 02/06/2009 13:39:31

The prison at Guantanamo Bay has been the source of many sleepless nights for those in this country and the rest of the world who value freedom and fairness. It's bad enough that people have been held there for 7 years without a chance to refute the charges against them; no charges have been made. It's bad enough that they are viewed by some as "prisoners of war" when no declaration of war has been made, and there can be no definitive end to our efforts to control terrorism. It's bad enough that this is being done in our name and our only recourse all these years has been our ballot.

No, on top of all this is the common knowledge that it is no better than Abu Ghraib under Saddam Hussein.
Continue reading...

150 comments (Latest Comment: 02/07/2009 05:07:11 by BobR)

I don't want to hear it.
Author: Raine    Date: 02/05/2009 13:30:44

You want a little semi-good news this morning? I'm going to try to deliver you some. Yesterday, by coincidence or not, after President Obama said he wanted to limit executive pay, Goldman Sachs said that it would seek to return the TARP money.
Continue reading...

104 comments (Latest Comment: 02/06/2009 03:51:54 by Raine)

Buy American
Author: BobR    Date: 02/04/2009 13:03:22

I've noted before that when I was growing up, the unions would have commercials exhorting us to "look for the union label". That was back in the good old days when clothes were actually made in the U.S., and the workers in the factories were frequently unionized. After Reagan essentially broke the backs of the unions, and imports were becoming popular, the call was to "buy American". After 9/11, Bush asked us to just "buy buy buy".

Of course - for most Americans, "buy buy buy" means "charge charge charge". As a result (in addition to the housing bubble), the amount of money lent out by banks began to exceed their ability to cover the loans. Thus, the banking industry imploded and we are left teetering on the precipice of another depression. The latest "are you kidding?" bit of news is that California is broke and has halted all payments. This is serious stuff.

Just like the last depression, the president is proposing we spend money on jobs, so that the pay these workers receive gets circulated back into the economy, hopefully revving it back up. I already covered in a previous blog how the Republicans want to use tax cuts for their magical trickle-down theories, so I won't go over that again. This time, the controversy is over Buy American.
Continue reading...

90 comments (Latest Comment: 02/05/2009 03:25:48 by Random)

Ask a Vet
Author: TriSec    Date: 02/03/2009 11:35:55

Good Morning.

Today is our 2,148th day in Iraq.

We'll start as we always do, with the latest casualty figures from Iraq and Afghanistan, courtesy of Antiwar.com:

American Deaths
Since war began (3/19/03): 4237
Since "Mission Accomplished" (5/1/03): 4098
Since Capture of Saddam (12/13/03): 3776
Since Handover (6/29/04): 3379
Since Election (1/31/05): 2799

Other Coalition Troops - Iraq: 317
US Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 644
Other Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 422
Contractor Deaths - Iraq: 446


We find this morning's Cost of War passing through:

593, 742, 150, 000.00


Continue reading...

98 comments (Latest Comment: 02/04/2009 03:58:19 by Raine)

There was no Oversight. NONE
Author: Raine    Date: 02/02/2009 13:16:10

Who could have seen this one coming?
A new commission examining waste and corruption in wartime contracts is getting a grim report from government watchdogs who say poor planning, weak oversight and greed combined to soak U.S. taxpayers and undermine American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, says U.S. taxpayers have paid nearly $51 billion for a wide array of projects in Iraq — from training the Iraqi army and police to rebuilding the country's oil, electric, justice, health and transportation sectors.

Some of these projects succeeded, Bowen informed the Wartime Contracting Commission at its first public hearing, according to his written testimony, but many did not. Violence in Iraq along with constant friction between U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad were also major factors that undercut progress.

The U.S. government "was neither prepared for nor able to respond quickly to the ever-changing demands" of stabilizing Iraq and then rebuilding it, Bowen said in his written testimony. "For the last six years we have been on a steep learning curve."

A lengthy study by Bowen's office, "Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience," reviews the problems in an effort the Bush administration initially thought would cost $2.4 billion.

Overall, the Pentagon, State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development have paid contractors more than $100 billion since 2003 for goods and services to support war operations and rebuilding projects in Iraq and Afghanistan.[/quote
Continue reading...

109 comments (Latest Comment: 02/03/2009 03:30:40 by Mondobubba)

The head of Blago
Author: velveeta jones    Date: 02/01/2009 15:08:39

It started just before the inauguration of Barack Obama. The people of Illinois were the first to notice, but really, what can you say? It’s just too bizarre to contemplate.

On Dec. 9 of last year, the Governor, Rod Blagojevich was arrested at his North Side home on federal corruption charges that included plotting to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama. Blagojevich immediately proclaimed his innocence. And this, many believe, is when it started.

Sure, there was the hair. That grand swell of well-coiffed jet black hair that would occasionally catch a puff of wind and billow like a plush black shag rug, strands glistening in the sun, as he stood outside his home in his black Puma jump suit. With that head of hair, it was hard to notice the change right away.
Continue reading...

43 comments (Latest Comment: 02/02/2009 03:21:56 by clintster)

Stuporbowl Sunday!
Author: TriSec    Date: 02/01/2009 15:06:49

It's 10am...do we have a hard deck on the weekends?

Anyway, here's a wee little stubby. You know what to do.

Donuts, coffee, and the Sunday Globe on the back table!


 
11 comments (Latest Comment: 02/02/2009 10:33:42 by trojanrabbit)

<<  525  526  527  528  529  530  >>
Order by most recent comment   Complete Blog Entry List