Ironic or Satirical you be the judge!

Happened across this article, and while I totally understand the author's intent, the comments after the article are almost as interesting.

Suggestions for Obama

Came across this list on a blog called "Business Pundit". I read it occasionally and like most of the things I have seen there. This one in particular is just right.

Our Next Prez!! Intelligence at last

Our Next President!

As I always suspected! DST fallacy

Well I have always said how stupid it was juts from a rational thought process. DST does not save time or money. When we change each Fall, I noticed long ago that the 'light' benefit only lasted at most 3 weeks, then it was just as dark as if we had made no change.

We have a Real and Elected President!!

Wonder what would have happened if he was a Democrat...

As much as the Republicans want to say the Media is left and democratic, why has this not been a 4 day conversation in the media, and nearly ruin his chances of being elected (and no it shouldn't be an issue)! my point is, Howard Dean a few years ago got caught up in the moment and made a single 'yeehaw' and it was all the media talked about and replayed for a week. They made it seem like he was out of control, when he was simply excited. Just another obvious time that the media is not liberal, left in its coverage.

A Small business man's perspective

Came across this great article just after Joe the Plumber came out on debate day...

Joe the Plumber's attitude always reminds me of people that I have worked with over the years, at hourly wage. They didn't want to work too much overtime, as it increased their taxes. I tried to explain to them how our progressive tax structure works, some got it others didn't. Yes if they earn more money they pay more taxes, but it doesn't effect the money they have already earned, just the extra. AT the end of the day if they work more Overtime they have more money..

some made up numbers:
Assume Tax Rates:
10% for up to $20,000
12% for up to $25,000
15% for up to $30,000

Sally makes base wages = $19,000, so tax rate = 10%, so taxes paid = $1,900, so take home $17,100

Billy makes base wages = $19,000, so tax rate = 10%, so taxes paid = $1,900, so take home $17,100
and makes Overtime = $2,000
so tax rate of 10% for first $1,000, so taxes paid = $100, so take home = $900
so tax rate of 12% for first $1,000 over $20k line, so taxes paid = $120, so take home = $880
Total Taxes paid = $1,900 + $100 + $120 = $2,120
Total Take home = $17,100 + $900 + $880 = $18,880 (or $1,780 more than Sally)

Jane makes base wages = $19,000, so tax rate = 10%, so taxes paid = $1,900, so take home $17,100
and makes Overtime = $7,000
so tax rate of 10% for first $1,000, so taxes paid = $100, so take home = $900
so tax rate of 12% for first $5,000 over $20k line, so taxes paid = $600, so take home = $4,400
so tax rate of 15% for first $1,000 over $25k line, so taxes paid = $150, so take home = $850
Total Taxes paid = $1,900 + $100 + $600 + $150 = $2,750
Total Take home = $17,100 + $900 + $4,400 + $850 = $23,250 (or $6,150 more than Sally and $4,370 more than Billy)

More Overtime = More money in your hands...simple right?

Obama calls mccain's bluff

Well John McBush wants to pretend to be a leader, but he has proven to be a follower for the last 2 years, a follower of Bush and Rove (and Cheney). Now he wants to divert some attention to himself and Obama says wait a minute what do you really want the public to know about you? Shouldn't McCain stand up and speak to the people? Obama wants to!

John McBush and campaign "truthiness"?

Well McBush and campaign continue to use repugnicant tactics to try and win the campaign, hope the American Voter sees through them this election.

Repugnicants stooping lower and lower

I guess the Rebugnicants are getting more worried by the day and think they need to start cheating on the presidential election earlier and earlier. They know they can't use the 'hanging chad' gambit again after bush 'won' the florida election in 2000. They seem to want to stray away from some of the covert measures they used in Ohio in 2004 for bush to 'win'. So now they are starting early on trying to 'help' mcbush win in 2008.

Sadly they are preying on people who fell victim to the repugnicant de-regulation of the mortgage industry.

Luckily the Democrats are staying on top of things this time around. Hopefully gw hasn't placed too many repugnicant judicial officials into Michigan

When do the Impeachments start

Bush and or Cheney

McBush is rational?

NY Times Opinion Editorial from 9/12/2008

Editorial

Gov. Palin’s Worldview

Published: September 12, 2008

As we watched Sarah Palin on TV the last couple of days, we kept wondering what on earth John McCain was thinking.

If he seriously thought this first-term governor — with less than two years in office — was qualified to be president, if necessary, at such a dangerous time, it raises profound questions about his judgment. If the choice was, as we suspect, a tactical move, then it was shockingly irresponsible.

It was bad enough that Ms. Palin’s performance in the first televised interviews she has done since she joined the Republican ticket was so visibly scripted and lacking in awareness.

What made it so much worse is the strategy for which the Republicans have made Ms. Palin the frontwoman: win the White House not on ideas, but by denigrating experience, judgment and qualifications.

The idea that Americans want leaders who have none of those things — who are so blindly certain of what Ms. Palin calls “the mission” that they won’t even pause for reflection — shows a contempt for voters and raises frightening questions about how Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin plan to run this country.

One of the many bizarre moments in the questioning by ABC News’s Charles Gibson was when Ms. Palin, the governor of Alaska, excused her lack of international experience by sneering that Americans don’t want “somebody’s big fat résumé maybe that shows decades and decades in that Washington establishment where, yes, they’ve had opportunities to meet heads of state.”

We know we were all supposed to think of Joe Biden. But it sure sounded like a good description of Mr. McCain. Those decades of experience earned the Arizona senator the admiration of people in both parties. They are why he was our preferred candidate in the Republican primaries.

The interviews made clear why Americans should worry about Ms. Palin’s thin résumé and lack of experience. Consider her befuddlement when Mr. Gibson referred to President Bush’s “doctrine” and her remark about having insight into Russia because she can see it from her state.

But that is not what troubled us most about her remarks — and, remember, if they were scripted, that just means that they reflect Mr. McCain’s views all the more closely. Rather, it was the sense that thoughtfulness, knowledge and experience are handicaps for a president in a world populated by Al Qaeda terrorists, a rising China, epidemics of AIDS, poverty and fratricidal war in the developing world and deep economic distress at home.

Ms. Palin talked repeatedly about never blinking. When Mr. McCain asked her to run for vice president? “You have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission,” she said, that “you can’t blink.”

Fighting terrorism? “We must do whatever it takes, and we must not blink, Charlie, in making those tough decisions of where we go and even who we target.”

Her answers about why she had told her church that President Bush’s failed policy in Iraq was “God’s plan” did nothing to dispel our concerns about her confusion between faith and policy. Her claim that she was quoting a completely unrelated comment by Lincoln was absurd.

This nation has suffered through eight years of an ill-prepared and unblinkingly obstinate president. One who didn’t pause to think before he started a disastrous war of choice in Iraq. One who blithely looked the other way as the Taliban and Al Qaeda regrouped in Afghanistan. One who obstinately cut taxes and undercut all efforts at regulation, unleashing today’s profound economic crisis.

In a dangerous world, Americans need a president who knows that real strength requires serious thought and preparation.

more questions about palin

Just when you (or at least I) thought that perhaps Palin wasn't too bad, we find out she might be farther out of touch the bush or mcbush. Didn't get a chance to watch ABC's interview with Palin this last weekend, but the few minutes I did see were scary, she couldn't seem to answer direct questions, that were out of the context of her prep.
She could only answer vaguely or not at all. The right seems to think that they have gone all feminist, but it is so see-through when you think for more than a second as to why mcbush chose her.

well here is an interesting article about just a few of her obvious lapses.

some opinions from people who already know her...you decide

Rangel should step down

We should expect more from our elected officials! Ethics

Gloria Steinem OP-ED in LATimes

Opinion

Palin: wrong woman, wrong message

Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

By Gloria Steinem
September 4, 2008

Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the "white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.

But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.

Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."

This is not to beat up on Palin. I defend her right to be wrong, even on issues that matter most to me. I regret that people say she can't do the job because she has children in need of care, especially if they wouldn't say the same about a father. I get no pleasure from imagining her in the spotlight on national and foreign policy issues about which she has zero background, with one month to learn to compete with Sen. Joe Biden's 37 years' experience.

Palin has been honest about what she doesn't know. When asked last month about the vice presidency, she said, "I still can't answer that question until someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does every day?" When asked about Iraq, she said, "I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq."

She was elected governor largely because the incumbent was unpopular, and she's won over Alaskans mostly by using unprecedented oil wealth to give a $1,200 rebate to every resident. Now she is being praised by McCain's campaign as a tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no state income or sales tax. Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long that he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not lowering them. Or perhaps McCain is following the Bush administration habit, as in the Justice Department, of putting a job candidate's views on "God, guns and gays" ahead of competence. The difference is that McCain is filling a job one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency.

So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq; someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against Women Act.

Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

I don't doubt her sincerity. As a lifetime member of the National Rifle Assn., she doesn't just support killing animals from helicopters, she does it herself. She doesn't just talk about increasing the use of fossil fuels but puts a coal-burning power plant in her own small town. She doesn't just echo McCain's pledge to criminalize abortion by overturning Roe vs. Wade, she says that if one of her daughters were impregnated by rape or incest, she should bear the child. She not only opposes reproductive freedom as a human right but implies that it dictates abortion, without saying that it also protects the right to have a child.

So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson, "women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership," so he may be voting for Palin's husband.

Being a hope-a-holic, however, I can see two long-term bipartisan gains from this contest.

Republicans may learn they can't appeal to right-wing patriarchs and most women at the same time. A loss in November could cause the centrist majority of Republicans to take back their party, which was the first to support the Equal Rights Amendment and should be the last to want to invite government into the wombs of women.

And American women, who suffer more because of having two full-time jobs than from any other single injustice, finally have support on a national stage from male leaders who know that women can't be equal outside the home until men are equal in it. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are campaigning on their belief that men should be, can be and want to be at home for their children.

This could be huge.

Gloria Steinem is an author, feminist organizer and co-founder of the Women's Media Center. She supported Hillary Clinton and is now supporting Barack Obama.

Republicans been stealing for generations....

Songs

Global Warming who knew...who believes?

Global warming who knew...who believes? Just read that Mcbush's new cheney pick doesn't believe that Global warming is man caused. Though she also thinks Creationism should be taught as a science course....

A few things to consider when voting

1. McBush

2. Mcbush bad or just not there? (Or just not all there, How many houses do you own?)

3. Obama

Interesting

This is an interesting take on the changes we have seen.

New Comedian!

Found someone out there, Senator Michele Bachmann, that is trying to take over Ann Coulter's crown as stupidest funniest Republican sycophant. Check out some of these :

Coffee Klatch
Global Warming
Light Bulbs

Reminds me of Former Representative Helen P. Chenoweth-Hage statement that salmon can't be endangered in Idaho, since she can still buy canned salmon at the store.....

Guns in School

Guess now kids won't have to go to the trouble of determining how to get guns in school, they will already be there! I guess Texas is still trying to reduce it's population.

Only took 7 years for the media to find out how to report

Jeremy Jacquot: Bush Administration Readies Gutting Knife for Endangered Species Act

from The Blog by Jeremy Jacquot

You didn't just think the Bush administration was going to leave quietly, did you? In a major scoop, the AP has uncovered the draft of a set of new regulations engineered by the Interior Department (and not subject to Congressional approval) that would allow federal agencies to decide for themselves whether infrastructure projects, like dams and highways, would harm endangered species. They would, in effect, greatly reduce the impact of the independent reviews government scientists have been carrying out over the last 35 years.

According to the AP, these major revisions would represent the biggest overhaul of the ESA since 1986. The proposed changes would essentially neuter the authority of wildlife experts (not that they ever mattered much for this administration) by giving federal agencies free rein to carry out large construction projects without consulting them about the environmental consequences. The Interior Department claims these consultations are no longer necessary, because the agencies are now capable of "reviewing" their own projects (right).

The administration plans on rushing these regulations through by leaving open only a 30-day public comment period, after which it would finalize the changes and implement them -- right before the November election. Stopping or reversing the changes would take several months, or even longer, giving developers precious time to work around current restrictions.

However depressing, this shouldn't come as much of a surprise, of course. As I've written about before, Bush and his acolytes have always made the dismantling of the ESA (among other pieces of environmental legislation) a priority:

The Bush administration has earned the dubious merit of adding the fewest number of species to the endangered list in the past six years than any other administration since 1973.

As a result, there is now a waiting list of 279 species on the edge of extinction and, out of the 1,326 already officially listed species, approximately 200 are close to total extinction. Furthermore, the Bush administration has removed 15 species from the list to date, a higher number than any previous administration.

Or take this nugget that my TreeHugger colleague John Laumer wrote about last year:

"Tired of losing lawsuits brought by conservation groups, the Bush administration issued a new interpretation of the Endangered Species Act that would allow it to protect plants and animals only in areas where they are struggling to survive, while ignoring places they are healthy or have already died out. The opinion by U.S. Department of Interior Solicitor David Bernhardt was posted with no formal announcement on the department's Web site on Friday."

Another example of the Bush administration at its "imaginative" best. After all, when it comes to circumventing the law, why let the Justice Department have all the fun?

This latest (and greatest) push comes, of course, after numerous failed attempts by both the administration and the GOP to force their hostility to the ESA down our throats, as the AP piece goes on to note:

In 2003, the administration imposed similar rules that would have allowed agencies to approve new pesticides and projects to reduce wildfire risks without asking the opinion of government scientists about whether threatened or endangered species and habitats might be affected. The pesticide rule was later overturned in court. The Interior Department, along with the Forest Service, is currently being sued over the rule governing wildfire prevention.

In 2005, the House passed a bill that would have made similar changes to the Endangered Species Act, but the bill died in the Senate.

Nothing to see here, folks: It's just another day at the Bush White House.

Moron alert!!

What kind of moron can this guy be? Total? Clueless? or just your average typical politician?

mcbush is siding with the current oil government of america

Nuts or just nutty?

Ever wonder how many nuts will be leaving positions of power come January....hope the Mental wards have enough room for all of georgie's friends and relatives..

hmm dumb or just lying

mccain recent 'statement' concerning contraception. Didn't want to answer because:

1. Couldn't remember his vote
2. Didn't know what the religious zealots wanted him to say ( no funny lump on his back for communications I guess)
3. Couldn't think clearly (due to age, or something else?)
4. Couldn't remember what georgie would do?
5. Something else?

Which is worse?

bush 3 veep candidate?

Is she trying out for bush 3 veep with mccain?

Be worried

more scary thoughts from bush 3 (true code name for mccain)

flickrword

Starting the real campaign to prevent Bush 3 (also known as McCain)

Having been a bush basher for a number of years, and now having the opportunity to have an Elected President again (see controversial election 'results' 2000 and 2004), I feel it is time to start weighing on this election cycle.
Obviously it would be hard find a candidate that was as poor a choice as georgie was. You could do better holding a lottery, or random phone number search and easily find a better person than we have been stuck with for the last 7 years.

Now the Republicans are taking a small step forward with McCain (well at least a baby step), but it is easy to see that the Republicans have not learned much in the last 7 years as McCain is only slightly better than georgie.

We will no doubt learn more about him as the next few months progress, but early information is troubling...

And Doonesbury probably thought Duke in Iraq was not a view on reality

Saw this through on (From Huff Post)

"Whistleblowers Say Private U.S. Contractors Looted, Stole and Ran a Prostitution Ring

In an investigative report largely ignored by the mainstream media, Mother Jones reports the shocking testimony of three whistleblowers who recently appeared before the Senate's Democratic Policy Committee (DPC). The whistleblowers told the committee that U.S. private contractors routinely looted Iraqi palaces and ministries, stole military equipment, fenced supplies destined for U.S. troops, and even operated a prostitution ring that may have contributed to the death of fellow contractor.

Barry Halley, a former project manager for Worldwide Network Services, a Washington, D.C.-based firm that was working on subcontract for DynCorp, testified that his site manager in Iraq, who he said was employed by a "major defense contractor," moonlighted as the leader of a prostitution ring serving American contractors in Iraq. The sex business sideline indirectly caused the death of a colleague. "A co-worker unrelated to the ring was killed when he was traveling in an unsecure car and shot performing a high-risk mission," he told the committee. "I believe that my co-worker could have survived if he had been riding in an armored car. At the time, the armored car that he would otherwise have been riding in was being used by a manager to transport prostitutes from Kuwait to Baghdad."

Frank Cassaday, a former contract employee of disgraced Cheney-connected firm KBR told the committee about an ice-stealing operation the company ran "cheating the troops out of ice at the same time that [the foreman in charge was] trading the ice for DVDs, CDs, food, and other items at the Iraqi shops across the street."

Cassaday also detailed how he was jailed in his tent for two days by KBR security and later transferred to a laundry job because he had reported to KBR superiors that his colleagues were stealing equipment from the U.S. military, including refrigerators, artillery round detonators, two rocket launchers, and about 800 rounds of small arms ammunition.

Another KBR whistleblower, Linda Warren, testifying about her time in Baghdad in 2004, said she was shocked by the number of contractors involved in criminal activity. "KBR employees who were contracted to perform construction duties inside palaces and municipal buildings were looting," she said. "Not only were they looting, but they had a system in place to get contraband out of the country so it could be sold on eBay. They stole artwork, rugs, crystal, and even melted down gold to make spurs for cowboy boots." Like Cassaday, KBR superiors punished Warren for speaking up, taking her vehicle away, monitoring her movements, cutting off her access to phones and the Internet, and ultimately transferring her out of Baghdad."

Another 1984 similarity from georgie's regime?

Well again we have some strong evidence that georgie and 'friends' have no idea what is going on. A recent article I read points to the stupidity that we see coming from the republican prez and DOD in regards to Iraq and why we should never have gone there. It just re-enforces why we need to be sure that we have a 'regime' change at home before we start telling others how to run their country.
As my wife said just tonight, it is pretty pathetic when your prez is so out of touch with everything that he can piss off the Canadians! How can you do that? They are the most rational country in the world that you could find, and they are mad at us too! She has a friend who lives there, and nearly all of the Canadian's she knows, can't stand him any more than we can (Approval rating Feb 2008, 19% in the US).

Do something for the Earth! Drink Coffee appropriately!

Are you looking for something to do for the Earth? Came across this article on the Net. It is a simple enough thing to do. If you are staying for coffee insist on being served in a washable/re-usable cup. Bring in your own cup if you are carrying-out! How simple can that be, VERY. Who can do it, EVERYONE.

Next time you go to that coffee emporium from Seattle, bring your own cup and save a paper cup or 2!

Has the GOP found someone worse than georgie? (I know I can't really believe it)

It is hard to believe that the GOP might have found someone who is more scary and possibly stupider than georgie. I know that I can't fathom it but reading more and more about huckabee frightens me more and more. He seems as though he could be more of an extremist than georgie tried to be, and possibly as extreme as the fundamentalist terrorists from the Taliban /Iraq, etc. How sad that he actually has followers in this country.

American manufacturer wakes up?

Saw this article, Ford finally wakes up. Just took 12 years of downturn, Oil to go through the roof and proof that people want to buy fuel efficient cars. Hmmm wonder when the other manufacturers
will do the same.

Another truly fine article that is so sadly, All True

You can find it here . Things will change in January 2009 (well actually November this year will be the start).