A letter to the Financial Speculators

Dear Thieves,

I have come to warn you as Jacob Marley's ghost came to warn Scrooge (loosely quoting Dickens): "You will wear the chain you forge in life. You make it link by link, and yard by yard... For it is truly required of everyone, that one's spirit should walk among his fellow men, and travel far and wide. If that spirit does not, it is doomed to wander the world and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared."

How do you feel now? Are you happy in your cold, big house? Are you beloved by all you have touched? Does your money comfort you in the loneliness of your thoughts? What if you lost all your money? What would you have then? Do you have friends who come through for you in the hard times?

You sure did have what Scrooge would admire as "a good head for business." You sold out yourself, your fellow brothers and sisters, our children, your country, and mankind, but you did do a lot of business. You took the easy way. You took the greedy way. It didn't feel right, but your values are "greed is good." As Dr. Seuss' character, the Once-ler, says, "If I didn't do it then someone else would." You justified your lies.

"Would you know," pursued the Ghost, "the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? ...It is a ponderous chain!" Every time your ego clouded your judgment, every moment you were silent when you should have spoken, every dream you have shattered, is a link on your chain.

The hubris you wear as a shield now prevents you from knowing, "This means YOU." But someday, your chain will keep you awake. Someday, your chain will wear you down. Someday, your chain will chill you with its loneliness.

There is no way out. The only way is sacrificing short-term payoffs for long-term benefits: "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were all my business. The dealings were a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!" Your business distracts you from your real business.

The rest of us wish you "a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. You'll be very merry and very happy, we have no doubt!"

Prop 8 - The Musical

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Response from Obama Mama

A response to some typical anti-Obama rhetoric...

Obama supports the Born Alive bill state and Fed that does not encroach upon Roe v. Wade rights

Besides being mistaken in logic and facts, I find it bizarre that many call extremely successful people hateful names and labels. Maybe those could learn lessons from their successes instead.

First:
At the time of the first proposed Illinois state born alive bill, there was already an existing Illinois law that insured that life-saving treatment would be given to infants, but sponsors of the BAIPA said that the law did not go far enough. This is a ploy used by Illinois abortion opponents to implement their ultimate agenda of overturning Roe v. Wade.

Barack Obama supports the 2002 federal bill b/c it does not encroach upon Roe v. Wade.

In 2005, a Born Alive bill was signed into law by the Illinois Senate and this bill specifically provides that it does not affect any existing federal or state laws regarding abortion. That means that it does not encroach upon any of the rights granted under Roe v. Wade.

Obama supports this 2005 version of the Illinois Born Alive bill. The legal point is that the bill only passed after the Roe v. Wade exclusion was added.

Second:
You must not agree with thousands of economics experts. http://media.economist.com/media/pdf/Totals1.pdf
Overall rating of tax plans:

1 is very bad, 5 is very good

Rating	1	2	3	4	5
McCain	42	47	22	17	2
Obama	6	23	48	39	13

Third:
Iraq's problems need to be tended to by Iraq. They have an $80-billion surplus they are not tapping, yet the US spends $10-billion/month there. If you were a fiscal conservative, you would be outraged. Let's instead get bin Laden.

Last:
Please be aware of the value-laded terms published and promoted out of the Luntz Republican Playbook, which uses emotionally-laden doublespeak. When ever you hear terms like "Healthy Skies," "Born Alive," "Freedom," "Patriot Act," etc. you know for sure some part of the legislation enacts exactly the opposite of those terms or a clever diversion from the real intent.

In sum:
A vote for McCain is a vote for an erratic, dumb, rash decision-maker. It is a vote for the rich people getting richer and more corrupt while the poor and middle-class get poorer as a result of the weight. It is a vote for a continuation of the whole worlds' hatred of us. A vote for McCain is an invitation for more aggression/"nukes" against us. He is not smart enough to manage complex systems and sanctions. It is a vote for continued killing of our sons and daughters in wars because we think we know best what other countries must do.

A vote for McCain is a vote to increase the deficit. It is a vote against middle-class values, strength, and growth. It is a vote against new, innovative industries of energy and economic development. It is a vote to subsidize risk for fat cats. It is a vote for someone who doesn't think of Plan B. It is a vote for someone who doesn't rely on empirical data from scientific consensus to make decisions. We want a president who can actually understand that data and its implications.

Obama's plan gives the biggest cuts to those who make the least, while McCain would give the largest cuts to the very wealthy. For the approximately 147,000 families that make up the top 0.1 percent of the income scale, the difference between the two plans is stark. While McCain offers a $269,364 tax cut, Obama would raise their taxes, on average, by $701,885 - a difference of nearly $1 million.




Get the facts, please http://www.barackobama.com/issues/. Be suspicious of bizarre, value-laden, emotional terms and odd logic and character assassinations.

To those of you who wish to abstain from voting all together, I'm sorry, but our founders, country-folk, and enlightenment thinkers died and sacrificed for you to vote. For the commoners to not rise up and voice their right is shameful. This process, the actual exercise of inalienable freedom is, in fact, the beacon of light in the dark world that can never go out. Not after 1776 happened.

Matt Damon on Sarah Palin

Damon brings up some good points on Palin. Yes...absurdity, and scary.

"I want to know if she thinks dinosaurs were here four-thousand years ago...because she is going to have the nuclear codes."

Are you better off today than you were 8 years ago?

I'm looking forward to a president who understands that there are intelligent ways to solve problems, rather than simply making knee-jerk decisions that sound good. I'm looking forward to a president who will rebuild our reputation in the world -- not only do our enemies resent us, but our allies despise us. I'm looking forward to a president who relies on empirical research and the scientific consensus to make informed decisions. I'm looking forward to a president who recognizes that evolution underlies all of science and is not living in a backward world of superstition and creationism that was put to rest 150 years ago. I'm looking forward to a president who will do what works to invigorate the economy. I'm looking forward to a president who will invest in new technologies and science to drive our economy to make us competitive again in the world.

I look forward to a president who understands a balanced approach to free trade and its effects on our economy at home. I look forward to a president who can diffuse Russia. I look forward to a president who can strengthen youths' desire to become productive men -- at home and in the middle east. I look forward to a president who neither placates nor outwardly despises the people stifled by the entitlement cultures promoted by the government. I look forward to a president who understands that modern warfare requires much more covert than overt ops and involves much more economic pressures and forces than ever. I look forward to a president who turns responsibility over to the "owners" of the country relies on the support of the rule of law as the accepted governance of the country, rather than using the US military as the police. I look forward to a president who values high-quality education as the great equalizer. I look forward to a president who understands that the health insurance system has made us more unhealthy. I look forward to a president who understands the impact of environmental pollutants and that many children (the poor are over-represented) have far too many chemicals coursing through their growing bodies.

I look forward to a president who contributes to operating on America being seen as the great beacon of democracy, equality, and freedom around the world instead of the brutalizing bully for oil that it has become. I look forward to a president who looks for unchecked power as leading necessarily to complete corruption -- which is exactly why our economy is in the dire straights it is in now -- due to banks and investment firms marginally operating within weak laws. I look forward to a president who realizes that trickle-down means trickle-out and that the application of this theory has compromised the infrastructure for entrepreneurship which has stymied our country. I look forward to a president who is not in the pocket of entrenched lobbyists and actively changes the "a-law-for-the-cash" congress. Most of all, I look forward to a president who acts from a set of timeless principles with good judgment, rather than merely talking about "values" buzzwords and fundamentalist bible-beating and using fear to propel the emotions of the people.


Keith Olbermann Interviews Barack Obama:

Lacking Integrity

Dear Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branches,

We the People do not authorize you to use our money to bail out the banks as you will most certainly not bail us out of our home foreclosures and layoffs. You stood by the free market when the banks, speculators, and loan sharks inflated share prices without creating value and now the People ask you to stand by the free market while it self-corrects.

Instead you sign a blank check from our checkbook for more of the same.

Ironically, you have created quite a welfare state... A welfare state not of single mothers and their poor children, but a welfare state that rewards military contractors' spending and corporate financial speculation.

-"We the People"

Another Letter to Superdelegates

I believe in Barack Obama. He represents what this country so desperately needs: the audacity to force a new political paradigm, the desire and vision to finally make honest, positive change in our country and the hope to make it all reality.

I did not know much of Barack Obama 18 months ago. My wife and I started discussing him as the buzz about his presidential bid was becoming louder. I checked him out, tried to see what he was all about. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that he was not the typical Washington politician I was used to. He was sincere; he was real, more so than any politician I has seen or heard in my 35 years.

We read his book, The Audacity of Hope, last summer. Reading it I got real feel for his integrity, honesty and leadership. I learned that he is well versed in the political system and that he has the wherewithal and persistence to make good things happen. He is not selfish. He is not greedy. He does not do what he does for himself; Barack Obama truly serves his country and the people he represents in every sense of the word.

Superdelegates, consider Barack Obama. Be diligent in getting to know him, what he can do and what he stands for. Understand that he is the only one on the playing field that does not closely represent the establishment that has steered our country away from hope and prosperity. Vote for Barack Obama, he is right choice for the right future of America.

Letter to Superdelegates

Barack Obama is the only candidate that cannot be bought by lobbyists. Because politicans have sold our fragile democracy away to the highest bidder, the Founding Fathers' immense sacrifice and legacy to us, the common people, has been trampled and defiled. Democracy itself is undermined and the power of the people is marginalized when corporations, through their lobbyists, in effect buy laws.

The triangle of corruption turns to iron (the iron triangle) when, in wartime, defense contractors buy laws that subsidize their own private businesses. Perpetual war, waged on the blood of our underpriveleged, undereducated young people, is not a moral choice for the engine of our economy.

Barack Obama does not oppose all war. He knows (like all sane Americans) that Islamic extremists and more want to kill us as much as possible. But Obama opposes a rash war. He opposed this dumb war, when the rest of America was duped into thinking Osama and Sadam are the same person.

Hillary Clinton was duped and takes lobbyists' money. John McCain is still duped into continuing a perpetual war. Only Obama talks about how his campaign is not his, it is instead a social movement of Americans standing together to voice the changes they want to see: world reconciliation, a retraction of imperialism, and kicking the lobbyists' influence right out of Washington entirely.

This is why I got "hooked on hope" and now, I see that once again only Obama has provided the judgment and vision out of our economic slump towards a future spurned on for generations by growing a green energy sector. Superdelegates, Mama says, "Vote for Obama!"

False Pretenses

I came across this the other day. Someone analyzed all of the Bush administration's references to Iraq's WMDs, Iraq's links to Al Qaeda or both over time up to a shortly after starting the war with Iraq in 2003; it even shows a bar graph shedding light on an organized PR campaign to fool the Americans and everyone else into going to war with Iraq.

It's an interesting read. It kind of makes them all murderers in a sense, IMO.

http://www.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/

Why US students are 29th in the world...

The "crazy Christians" are after us!!!

Re: Origin Theories Clash: Pinellas School Board would teach Intelligent Design...

The reason the US is 29th in the world in science instead of 1st is because our leaders and educators are being duped by the "Wedge Document" campaigns. These school board leaders need to go back to school, as they have not had a proper science education: These leaders are apparently easily duped by a PR campaign promoting an idea that in no way reflects critical thinking skills, the scientific method, or qualifies as a scientific theory. This ignorance would be laughable if it weren't so pathetically damaging to America's future.

The Wedge Document represents the strategy of the Discovery Institute, a think tank that advocates intelligent design and its "Teach the Controversy" campaign, which aims to teach creationist beliefs in public high school science courses. The Discovery Institute put forth its planned public relations, public opinion, media, and political lobbying campaigns in the Wedge Document, which states that the aim of this creationist campaign is to drive a "wedge" into popular discussions about the origin of life by manufacturing a false controversy that does not actually exist within the scientific community. The Wedge Document states the Institute's manifesto is to "defeat evolution" and "replace it with Christian and theistic convictions" to "affirm the reality of God."

In a public school, to have any patience at all with creationist/intelligent design notions is to do a severe disservice to your students. Those ideas in no way qualify as a theory, in any science, by any scientist anywhere. I hope various leaders on the School Board will thank the private company, the Discovery Institute, for doing such a good job in their advertising campaign! Their duping campaign has worked on them!

Perfect Me Ann Coulter

Again, this is great...very funny, and in my Happy Hanukkah video theme...

Satirist/singer/guitar player Leah Kauffman sings and asks Ann Coulter to perfect her. I think she (Leah) really puts things in the right perspective.

Rock On!

Holy Crap!

6,000 soldiers claim persecution by "Christian" evangelicals

This is so frightening...

"They are proselytizing not on behalf of the Constitution of the United States and the national security interests of our country but rather on behalf of some sort of fanatical view of end times. And they are using our army to affect that."
-- Ambassador Joe Wilson

And follow the link to read on, it gets better, I mean worse.

Links from the article:

• The Christian Right and the Rise of American Fascism
• Theocracy Watch: The Rise of the Religious Right in the Republican Party - a public information project of the Center for Religion, Ethics, and Social Policy
  at Cornell University
• ideological insanity behind Erik Prince and Blackwater Inc.
• Military Religious Freedom Foundation
  

Heaven help us!

-Harry

Who should I vote for?

Who should I vote for? I'll vote for the person who understands that the checks and balances on the three separate branches of government are crucial to keep our democracy functioning. The founding fathers knew that power makes even the best people turn absolutely corrupt. They cleverly devised the only way to stop inevitable corruption through healthy checks and balances with real teeth.

I'll vote for someone who will give the people back their constitutional rights, rights such as freedom from being spied on and thrown in jail without due process. I'll vote for someone who upholds the constitution regarding torture. I'll support the person who understands that our country was founded on the basis of the separation of church and state. I'll vote for the person strong enough to stop lobbyists from buying laws and lawmakers.

Who is this hero? Who is the person, when tempted with the now increased powers in the executive branch to make his/her decisions law, who would give up these imperial prerogatives in favor of rule as the founding fathers intended? i.e., no more kings!

Classic warning signs...

How to shut down democracy and begin fascism: Step 1, invoke threat; Step 2, establish secret prisons, Step 3, develop paramilitary (contractor killers), Step 4, surveil citizens... etc. Classic warning signs...video with Naomi Wolf:

http://www.booktv.org/program.aspx?ProgramId=8653&SectionName=After+Words&PlayMedia=No

Put $ where mouth is by actually being a beacon of democratic values for the world. Anyone of us can be yanked off to a secret prison with no recourse, mistakes or no. Thought we covered this in 1215 with the Magna Carta. We've rewound western civilization by 700 years: we're pre-Enlightenment, baby. Feel like a "patriot" now?

Letter to the FCC

Dear FCC,

I’m so glad we have people in the FCC that have had a Communication class. You know then, about the FCC’s sacred calling to protect the public interest from monopolies and the long-fought history of this protection. Of course you are familiar with this history, as it is the very history of the FCC itself. God bless you for making the right decisions on protecting local interests from monopolies.

I’m sure you would do your historic duty to the people by not allowing ownership of the newspaper and a radio or TV station in the same market. Otherwise, that would break the entire reason for the FCC’s being, wouldn’t it?

However, I must warn you, that some influential leaders and thinkers are loudly espousing their beliefs that your FCC is “making information safe for monopolies” (Al Gore, The Assault on Reason). Bill Moyers said on his show the other week: “Kevin Martin isn’t letting up in his relentless push to allow a handful of media giants swallow up more of your local media.” Other communication scientists have shown relationships between the media’s conglomerates hiring of FCC officials and making favorable decisions for those media conglomerates who hire you (the revolving door theory). Maybe you ought to give these influential leaders a call to reassure them that you are on the side of the people who value diversity of information over supposed cost-saving consolidations and not on the side of media conglomerates.

Best of luck in your decision to roll back putting concentrated information power in the hands of the few. That is a hard fight today with all of the consolidation. Yet, it is an heroic struggle for the survival of our precious democracy. As you stand up to these media conglomerates, just remember you are standing up for democracy itself.

It is so great to live in a country where freedom of information and opposing viewpoints is honored for the very existence of our democracy. Can you imagine what it is like in China, where all of the information is owned by one monopoly – the state?


Happy Holidays.

Mitt Romney: "The Bible is the word of God"

Last night in the YouTube Republican Debate, Mitt Romney said that "The Bible is the word of God... I don't disagree with the Bible. I try to live by it." Haven't we learned our lesson by electing someone who thinks "God is on my side, so whatever I want to do is justified by divinity"?

If Romney lives by the Bible as the word of God, then he would have to "execute any child who hits or curses his parents" (Exodus 21:15, 17), as the Bible tell us. If he were to follow the Bible, Romney would have to kill anyone who suggested believing in another religion, as the Bible says, "thou shalt surely kill him, thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death" (Deuteronomy 13:6-10).

Finally, God says that he visits "the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and fourth generation" (Exodus 34:7). Therefore, God has condemned Romney with wickedness and immorality because his ancestors were polygamous. I guess he doesn't disagree with that.

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/fv/long.html

The wealthy get their way

You won't be getting a safe toys bill this holiday season. The politics of wealth, of greed, of corruption, of corporate pandering have won over democracy.

Why would our lawmakers protect us from large corporate interests, like those selling us the cheapest toys, when they are paid by these corporate interests? Why would our government go from subsidizing large corporations with few regulations to protecting the people?

On any question you have, now that democracy is eroded, the answer to every policy question will always be that the one who has the money wins.

Published in the St. Pete Times 11/27

Obama’s Ready, Are We?

Those who think they saw Obama cowering from Hillary Clinton are misled. Obama is an Abraham Lincoln who stands up for what he knows is right. Clinton is a politician first and foremost who thinks what is right is what will get her elected.

Obama is going from good to great and can’t be bought. Clinton is in the pocket of corporate corruption and corporate corruption is in her pocket.

Barack Obama is ready to be our President, but are we ready for a truly great man as our President? Just like a teenage girl, are we won over by a flashy, slightly bombastic charmer or are we behind a golden nice guy, one who’s integrity we can bet on all the way to the bank? This mama says, “Vote for Obama!”

Hope for US Science

Recently, I read an argument supporting the superiority of United States' science education over that of Western European countries; specifically it was argued that there is more "hope" for science in the US than in some other Western European countries, such as France. The argument went on to suggest that if we use statistics and not "emotional impressions" we will see that by looking at the number of Nobel Prize winners in science from the US as compared to that of France that the truth will be apparent in the numbers. The argument went on to list the 76 Nobel Prize winners from the US and the mere 33 Nobel Prize winners in science from France. This information can be found on Wikipedia here and I assume it to be true.

However, since they got me thinking about statistics, I thought...

I find these numbers interesting considering France's population (61+ million) is roughly one-fifth that of the United States (300+ million). Given this, if France were merely on par with the US, and not below it scientifically, using the Nobel prize winner measurement, I would expect France to have approximately 15 Nobel Prize winners in science over the same number of years. Instead, they have more than double this. So, in a way, these statistics used to show that the US is better than France scientifically actually show just the opposite. By these stats, France is twice as good at churning out Nobel Laureates in science than the US.

I am actually surprised by these stats. My emotional impression would suggest that the US kicks most countries' butts in this Nobel Prize measurement. I guess I should use statistics and not my emotional impression. Hmmmm.

However, by these other statistics which show Nobel prizes by country, per capita, the US still beats France by 2 rankings (Yea America!). The link above shows that the US ranks #11 behind these 10 Western European countries:

1. Iceland
2. Sweden
3. Switzerland
4. Denmark
5. Norway
6. United Kingdom
7. Austria
8. Ireland
9. Germany
10. Netherlands

Maybe it's something in the water over there.

Still looking for Hope,
Harry

Priorities

The priorities are all super out of whack. We have unsecure borders, ports, and nuclear power plants, yet we send our young to a grist mill. China actually owns our country and could shut us down, yet we spends trillions of tax payer dollars on babysitting a civil war. We don't pay our recruits or give them a decent hospital, but we use tax payer $ to pay unregulated mercenaries 10X what the army gets. We do not have enough Arabic speakers and translators, yet we wiretap our own citizens.

While we were embroiled in a useless war, India, China, Japan, and Western Europe overtook America in science, technology, and education. We have squandered our legacy of freedom and innovation on war mongering and religiosity to the exclusion of scientific advancements. Western Europe laughs at us b/c have of our people do not believe in evolution, the foundation of almost all of science.

The secret intelligence agencies still do not function correctly together, yet the army sends the CIA recalcitrant suspects to interrogate. Where are the spy satellites and robotic spy planes? Those along with super-specifically targeted smart missiles should almost be enough on the military side of the war on terror. Man on man land wars are so last century. Where is the clever propaganda? Do we secretly infiltrate al-Qaeda? Do we secretly cause instability and create suspicion from within of our enemies? Most importantly, do we see the $ flow and change that to suit us? Do we care about western allies?

Do we try diplomacy? Why haven't we cleaned up Russia's nuclear weapons that are being smuggled out by terrorists by the thousands and sold to the highest bidder? Why can't we calm Russian, N. Korea, and Iran down with surface ego appeasements? They just want their egos massaged, that shouldn't be too hard to do.

Do we care about the constitution or only about executive privilege? Why is Congress spineless to defend constitutional rights? Why do lobbyists write laws? Why are we 'hos for oil? Why do we ever let child molesters out? Why don't we put our best minds on terrorism and profiling terrorism and undercutting it with communication campaigns (what I want to do with my life!).

The priorities are all out of whack. Gov. should get the smartest, most honest, best quality people they can find, get them on the bus, and then let the best decide where to drive it. Instead, we have not so smart people getting people that are not so great, but are "loyal Bushies" on the bus and they driving it around with big war bombs from 50 years ago, pointing and shooting at "bad guys" b/c they've played to many us against them video games.

The real problem with Islamaland is that this is their dark ages. So how did we come out of ours? Those little Italian city-states started more free markets--> merchant class--> democratic processes in the city-states for the merchant class--> therefore translating to reduced power of religion on everyday lives of these people--> disposable income for arts--> arts and science and learning classics advance together--> wealthy banks are now controlled by this new class--> scientific advancement and humanism flourish--> leading to enlightenment ideals of secularism for governance, embracing diversity as benefit, and belief in the rational man. Ok Islam...now it's your turn.

-A