18 Mar 2010
False Hope for Homeowners

Wanna get a firsthand taste of hope? Go to this link in a new window or tab - it's a HUD site for Indiana on avoiding foreclosure. Once there, click on the link that says "HUD Approved Counseling Agencies".

Well, that didn't work so well, eh? OK, try the link that says "How to avoid foreclosure", which is a redirect to an Indiana State government site. You'll get the redirect page (unlike on the first link), select 'Go to the requested page'.

404

There is no hope. Just a cesspool into which the taxpayers toss cash.

21:48 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

State Can Dump Non-Sex Offenders Into Registry

You wanna know why the law gets no respect these days? Because apparently Humpty Dumpty is making the law, where a word means exactly what he says it means, and not whatever everybody else thinks it means. In Georgia (under Federal mandate) they've defined criminal confinement as a sex offense. And the Georgia courts have upheld this definition:

“Rainer’s belief that the term ’sexual offender’ may only apply to offenders who commit sexual offenses against minors does not change the fact that the definition provided in the statute, and not the definition that Rainer wishes to impose upon the statute, controls,” the court’s majority said.

Basically, they're saying that the legislature could define jaywalking as a sex offense, and thereafter all jaywalkers would be placed on what essentially amounts to lifelong probation, with residency restrictions. I'm reminded of one of my favorite quotes (from Malcolm X) - "You can put a shoe in an oven, but that doesn't make it a biscuit."

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master— that's all."

Welcome to Wonderland.

Georgia’s Supreme Court is upholding the government’s right to put non-sex offenders on the state’s sex-offender registry, highlighting a little-noticed (but growing) nationwide practice.

(link) [Wired]

08:04 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

14 Mar 2010
Culture of Corpulence

I'm calling bullshit. The only American innovation that's led to 65% of us being classed as overweight or obese is an innovation in measurement ... calculate your own BMI here.

American innovations in food, transportation, and technology are threatening to supersize us all.

(link) [Newsweek]

16:37 /Politics | 1 comment | permanent link

11 Mar 2010
Bring Back the Robber Barons

Nothing really boils my blood more than a "vulgar libertarian" misreading history and giving thieves far more credit than they deserve. Look at the list of Robber Barons this guy praises, and tell me how they're any different from the "political entrepreneurs" of today that he roundly condemns ...

The truth is, we don't need to "bring back" the Robber Barons - they never left. For an antidote to this tripe, may I suggest The Triumph of Conservatism. Real history.

There's a big difference between entrepreneurs who make a fortune in the market, and those who do so by gaming the government.

(link) [Wall Street Journal Online]

21:54 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

28 Feb 2010
America, the Fragile Empire

Very interesting read ...

It is historians who retrospectively portray the process of imperial dissolution as slow-acting. Rather, empires behave like all complex adaptive systems. They function in apparent equilibrium for some unknowable period. And then, quite abruptly, they collapse.

(link) [Los Angles Times]

12:09 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

27 Feb 2010
Utah Bill Criminalizes Miscarriage

Truth will always out - and you can cast the "we don't want to jail women" rhetoric of the "right to life" movement on the dustbin of history ...

The bill passed by legislators amends Utah's criminal statute to allow the state to charge a woman with criminal homicide for inducing a miscarriage or obtaining an illegal abortion.

(link) [Reality Check]

11:25 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

21 Feb 2010
School Officials Likened to Peeping Toms

Paging Mr. Orwell...

The family that sued to get a suburban Pennsylvania school district to stop secretly viewing students at home via webcams on school-issued laptops is blasting the practice, though it's been halted.

(link) [CBS News]

16:40 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Who's Platform?

Obama? Clinton? Dennis Kucinich?

  • We are proud of and shall continue our far-reaching and sound advances in matters of basic human needs—expansion of social security—broadened coverage in unemployment insurance —improved housing—and better health protection for all our people.
  • In all those things which deal with people, be liberal, be human.
  • We shall continue vigorously to support the United Nations.
  • Further reductions in taxes with particular consideration for low and middle income families.
  • Procedural changes in the antitrust laws to facilitate their enforcement.
  • Revise and improve the Taft-Hartley Act so as to protect more effectively the rights of labor unions, management, the individual worker, and the public.
  • We favor a comprehensive study of the effect upon wildlife of the drainage of our wetlands.
  • We favor self-government, national suffrage and representation in the Congress of the United States for residents of the District of Columbia.

Nope. We've come a long way, eh?

via DailyKOS

13:47 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

17 Feb 2010
How Christian Were the Founders?

It seems as though the Christian Right never tires of trotting out the Founding Christian Fathers. Except, well, they really weren't. Religion in 18th century America is a lot more complicated than most people are willing to admit - this is a reasonably balanced overview of the topic.

Last month, a week before the Senate seat of the liberal icon Edward M. Kennedy fell into Republican hands, his legacy suffered another blow that was perhaps just as damaging, if less noticed. It happened during what has become an annual spectacle in the culture wars.

(link) [New York Times]

23:36 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

16 Feb 2010
Science Fair Bans Most Science

This is an unbelievable list: I never would've had a science fair project if these had been in force 40 years ago. But that's when our national goal was the Moon, not Starbucks and MSN Online ...

So I guess if you are doing a science experiment involving the effect of dust on a desk, you’re ok. But beyond that, it gets very tricky. And, worse, interesting. And so it is verboten. All for the safety of the kids, of course.

(link) [Free Range Kids]

22:30 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

15 Feb 2010
Virgin's Richard Branson takes on peak oil

I can't for the life of me figure out what's controversial about the idea of peak oil. The timing can be argued about somewhat, but the notion that fossil fuels are a finite natural resource seems as obvious as the nose on my face. It's equally obvious that we've found the easy oil - new finds are going to be (besides scarce) deeper and harder to get to or refine. Which means more expensive.

A report out of Britain funded by Virgin Airlines owner Richard Branson and other British business leaders warns that peak oil is looming in 2015. The controversial idea that growing oil demand will soon outstrip more finds is capturing the attention of governments.

(link) [Christian Science Monitor]

22:17 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

03 Feb 2010
This Nation's Devolution from Quality to Convenience

An important and interesting theory, that goes a long way towards describing America in the first decade of the 21st century...

In the trade-off between quality and convenience, Americans now expect convenience in everything but healthcare, with disastrous long-term results.

(link) [of two minds]

20:48 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

26 Jan 2010
Menifee USD pulls dictionaries due to explicit word

If you wonder about the reasons for the dismal state of the American educational system, just remember this formula: zero tolerance = zero sense.

A parent complaint that a dictionary in her son’s classroom at Oak Meadows Elementary contained the term and definition for “oral sex” prompted school officials in the Menifee Union School District to pull all copies of the book from its fourth and fifth grade classrooms last week. Copies of Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition (published in 1994), were taken from a recommended reading list and put into use in district classrooms a few years ago to accommodate higher level readers, said Betti Cadmus, spokeswoman for the district.

(link) [Southwest Riverside News Network]

15:31 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

12 Jan 2010
US Youth Have Serious Mental Health Issues

I'm shocked! Not...

Google News and The Canadian Press report that 'a new study has found that five times as many high school and college students in the United States are dealing with anxiety and other mental health issues than youth of the same age who were studied in the Great Depression era.

(link) [Slashdot]

22:53 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Google may quit China over activist attacks

It's never too late to undo evil...

AFP - Google has vowed to defy Chinese Internet censors and risk banishment from the lucrative market in outrage at "highly sophisticated" cyberattacks aimed at Chinese human rights activists.

(link) [Yahoo! News]

22:29 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

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