Month: October 2009

Daniel Suelo wasn’t poor, a victim of bad luck, mentally ill, or even uneducated. He just decided that he wanted to have nothing to do with money. So he gave up consumer culture altogether, and for the last 9 years, he’s survived by living in a cave in Utah, and dumpster diving, foraging, fishing, and occasionally hunting for food. He spends his time in the great outdoors–and in the public library, where he blogs about it all.

[From 48 Year-Old Blogger Has Gone 9 Years Without Spending Money | Environment | AlterNet]

All I can say is: the president gave a speech he could have given at any point in the last three years. No one in that room could disagree with any of the things he said. I sure don’t (with the exception of the hate crimes hooey). And he said it well and movingly. Like we didn’t know he could do that.
But the point of electing a president who pledged to actually do things is to hold him to account, and to see if he is willing to take any risk of any kind to actually do something. I had a few prior tests of his seriousness or signs that he gets it, a few ways to judge if this speech had anything new or specific or clear. He failed every test.
To wit:
He says he will end Don’t Ask Don’t Tell but he has done nothing, and he offered no time-line, no deadline for action and no verifiable record that he has done anything, despite his claims that he has.
He says he is ending the HIV ban, but it is still in force, a year and a half after it was signed by George W. Bush and passed by massive majorities in both houses.
He says he favors equality for gay couples but said nothing tonight to support the initiatives in Maine or in Washngton State or the struggle in Washington DC for marriage equality. That’s a test of real sincerity on this matter. He failed it.
He says he wants to end discrimination in employment even as he is firing more gay people solely for being gay than any other employer in the country – as commander-in-chief. And if an employer is firing gay people all the time, is it tolerable to accept as a response that he will stop doing it one day – but gives no time-line at all to hold him to?
Look: I didn’t expect these issues to be front and center given his appalling inheritance; I know he has many other things on his plate; I didn’t expect the moon; I didn’t believe he would do any of this immediately; I understand that the real job is for us to do, not him, and that most of the action is in the states. And I remain a strong supporter of him in foreign policy and in the way he is clearly trying to move this country past the ideological divides of the recent past.
But the sad truth is: he is refusing to take any responsibility for his clear refusal to fulfill clear campaign pledges on the core matter of civil rights and has given no substantive, verifiable pledges or deadlines by which he can be held accountable. What that means, I’m afraid, is that this speech was highfalutin bullshit. There were no meaningful commitments within a time certain, not even a commitment to fulfilling them in his first term; just meaningless, feel-good commitments that we have no way of holding him to. Once the dust settles, ask yourself. What did he promise to achieve in the next year? Or two years? Or four years? The answer is: nothing.
HRC, of course, is putting no pressure on him; Joe Solmonese’s disgraceful email actually took all pressure off him by saying he’d be happy to wait till 2017 for HRC to hold Obama accountable. HRC are putting pressure, as they always have, on gay people to go to the back of the line and be grateful a president attends their fundraising event. The only word for this is a racket. And if gay people do not rise up and demand change from this organization and stop funding a group whose goal has always been to sell the Democrats to gay people rather than secure civil rights, then they will continue to suffer the discrimination they live under day after day.

[From The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan]

TEHRAN, Iran — Three defendants in Iran’s mass trial of opposition figures accused of fueling the country’s postelection unrest have been sentenced to death, an Iranian news agency reported Saturday.

Two of them were convicted of membership in a monarchist group seeking to topple Iran’s Islamic Republic and restore a monarchy, the semiofficial ISNA news agency reported, quoting judiciary official Zahed Bashiri Rad.

The third defendant was convicted of having ties to a terrorist group for his alleged links to the People’s Mujahedeen, an armed opposition group, ISNA quoted Rad as saying.

[From Iran Sentences 3 To Death In Post-Election Mass Opposition Trial]

Dennis Miller and Bill O’Reilly had a discussion about cable news on “The O’Reilly Factor” Wednesday night to mark Fox News’ 13th birthday.

“Billy, I view it like a long piece of straightaway,” Miller said. “Like that road betwen Barstow and Vegas. Cable news is a long straightaway.”

MSNBC, Miller said, is in the left lane.

“On the left lane, MSNBC has gone completely over the shoulder, over the breastplate, over the hip, over the knee, over the bunion,” he said. “They are so far out there now that quite frankly Magellan and OnStar can’t locate them.”

Miller compared CNN to “that old faded yellow line down the middle of the road.”

“Periodically a rumble strip breaks out for the elections or the debates or something like that, but by and large, people know it, they’re familiar with it,” he said.

[From Dennis Miller Knocks Hannity, Beck On Fox News (VIDEO)]

Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kans.) told reporters on Wednesday that opposition to the president’s health care package was driven, in part, by knee-jerk partisanship and he urged Congressional Republicans to consider backing a version of reform.

The 1996 Republican presidential candidate also predicted, following a speech at a health care reform summit in Kansas, that “there will be a signing ceremony” for a reform bill sometime this year or early in 2010.

But the comments that seem likely to create the most ripples were those that dealt with Congressional opposition to the White House. Dole, according to reports, framed the pushback to Barack Obama’s reform agenda as almost perfunctory in nature.

[From Bob Dole: Health Care Will Pass, GOP Should Be Open To Reform]

Two thugs who attacked what they thought were a pair of transvestites picked on the wrong men – when their intended victims turned out to be cage fighters on a night out in fancy dress.

Dean Gardener, 19, and Jason Fender, 22, singled out the two men walking along a street in wigs, short skirts and high heels.

Bare-chested Gardener was caught on CCTV confronting one of the men in a pink wig, black skirt and boob tube – then seen swinging a punch, a court heard.

[From Thugs attack two men in dresses… who turn out to be cage fighters | Mail Online]

  

Evils of Censorship Important to Understand; Destruction of Free Speech is Top Priority of Police State.

The evils of censorship are a direct assault to the civil rights of the citizens of the United States of America as guaranteed by the United States Constitution. Censorship is a way for the government of the United States to suppress people’s ability to freely express their ideas.

The suppression of the expression of free thought will lead to the actual repression of the thoughts themselves. Censorship sends the wrong message to the public, it makes people feel that it does not make any sense for them to be creative, because their full ideas will not stand a chance of being fully released.

There are many occurrences throughout society that show the extents of the evils of censorship. While various entities encourage censorship in one sense or another, the final determination is always left with the government. There are many reasons for censorship, but none of these reasons are grounds for the action, the determination of what should or should not be viewed, should be left to the individual doing the viewing, or for minors, should be left to the parents to determine.

The use of censorship not only limits the expression of the person being censored, but also limits the free will of the person who chooses to view or not view the particular media being censored.

[From Evils of Censorship – The Evils of Censorship Equals Destruction of Free Speech | Truth-It]

Stephanie Smith, a children’s dance instructor, thought she had a stomach virus. The aches and cramping were tolerable that first day, and she finished her classes.

[From Woman’s Shattered Life Shows Ground Beef Inspection Flaws – NYTimes.com]

Prices of your favorite grocery items are skyrocketing, but you probably don’t know it. Many companies are using a sneaky way to raise prices without driving customers to less expensive brands: they are shrinking their packaging. A jar of Skippy peanut butter, for example, is the same height and circumference it has always been, but now has a hidden, inward “dimple” on the bottom that decreases the amount the jar holds by two ounces. Boxes of breakfast cereal appear to be the same height and width they’ve always been, but manufacturers have reduced the boxes’ depth from front to back, decreasing the amount of cereal they hold. Rolls of Scott toilet tissue contain the same number of sheets as always (1,000), but the length of each sheet has been cut from 4 to 3.7 inches. A “six ounce” can of Starkist Tuna now holds just five ounces. When asked about the shrinkage, most companies point to higher costs for ingredients, manufacturing and fuel. Dan Howard, a marketing professor at Southern Methodist University, says the only way consumers can fight back against this sneaky way of increasing costs is to refuse to buy from manufacturers who engage in this deceptive tactic.

[From Sneaky manufacturers shrink packaging, while keeping prices the same | Center for Media and Democracy]