Good Morning....heading out to the store in a bit for the Discovery School...

Some mildly interesting things going on in and around the City of Boston this weekend.

Our landlocked brethren have no concept of this event, but for a longtime port city, Boston is making a sorry showing of the Tall Ships visit this weekend. Mayor Menino and the organizers of the event have been fighting for over a year. The Mayor wanted, and got, $1m from the event as 'security payola', and in return, the event was cut from 7 days to 5, and the ships arrived mostly under the cover of darkness earlier in the week with no "Parade of Sail". (What would be the point, then? I can go on a "Tall Ship" at dock anytime in the USS Constitution...)

In any case, crowds are small this weekend, and a City councilor (and mayoral candidate) is blaming the mayor for the event's failure. Most of us in the "real world" recognize that we won't see the tall ships in Boston again as long as Menino is in charge.
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9 comments (Latest Comment: 07/12/2009 00:36:52 by livingonli)

Yesterday, above or below the noise and the din of the Jackson Palin Media channels was another discussion that political wonks seems to be having. It was talk of a second stimulus. With questions being bandied about cable news, online media and the blogosphere like 'will we need a Stimulus 2.0?' and 'are we spending enough?' to the constant drumbeat of how 'the stimulus has been a failure', I was wondering where this idea of a Stimulus 2.0 came from. I have watched the President, I have paid fairly close attention to what is going on. I simply couldn't recall where the meme came from.
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96 comments (Latest Comment: 07/10/2009 02:12:07 by Raine)

Good Morning.

Today is our 2,302nd day in Iraq.

We'll start this morning 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): 4323
Since "Mission Accomplished" (5/1/03): 4184
Since Capture of Saddam (12/13/03): 3862
Since Handover (6/29/04): 3464
Since Obama Inauguration (1/20/09): 95

Other Coalition Troops - Iraq: 318
US Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 725
Other Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 491
Journalists - Iraq: 138
Contractor Employee Deaths - Iraq: 1,360

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

$ 876, 446, 175, 000 .00


This morning, we'll be taking a look back at our occupation of Iraq. On June 30, US troops left their bases in and around the cities of Iraq and went back to the Green Zone to start packing up.
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77 comments (Latest Comment: 07/08/2009 03:21:48 by AuntAzalea)

Good morning dear readers! Velveeta was all set to review Mark Sanfords love letters, but then Sarah Palin debuted a new performance art piece / political press conference. I was still intent on the Sanford letters because, I mean, that is some juicy good reading, but then I read this. Seems that Todd’s wife and mother of “Trig” is getting litigious according to “some sources”



So let me be clear, that we here at 4 Freedoms Blog do NOT want to get national attention by claiming that Sarah Palin may be under federal investigation for embezzlement or other criminal wrongdoing.
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19 comments (Latest Comment: 07/06/2009 04:52:30 by livingonli)

“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
- Mark Twain

The 2008 election was an historic moment - the first black president of the United States was chosen by a majority of the voting public. At the same time, the House and Senate were given over to the Democrats with solid majorities. The messages from the campaigns struck the right notes in the ears of Americans, and the they went to the polls to vote for hope, but more importantly: change.

But of course, some things never change. The players in charge of disseminating the smears and lies about Obama and the Democrats (Limbaugh, FAUX News, ... you know who they are) have not only kept up the propaganda, they've ramped it up. The problem with this is that there is a small percentage of the population that eats this up as truth because it reinforces what they already believe and feel.
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65 comments (Latest Comment: 07/04/2009 03:52:17 by BobR)