Our first page automatically closed to comments due to "old age" so I have started this one. Here is the last update reprinted for you and you can continue to leave comments.
Sep 172015
Sep 172015
By now, most of us are familiar with the plight of Ahmed Mohamed and his "BOMB" that was masquerading as a Clock that got him arrested, handcuffed, fingerprinted and suspended.
NOTE to the Irving school authorities and police who were repeatedly told by Ahmed that it was just a CLOCK – but dedmanded getting a "broader explanation" from the Muslim teen:
If you're told the item is a clock …
If it ticks like a clock …
If it tells time like a clock …
Then it's probably a clock!
BUT if your name is Mohamed …
AND you're brown-skinned
Then, of course, it's a BOMB!
And two extremely important questions for the Irving school authorities and police:
If you thought it was a bomb, why didn't you evacuate the high school?
What "broader explanation" than "It's a clock" do you think was available?
Sep 162015
Electronic voting machines in 43 states are at least a decade old, "perilously close to the end of most systems' expected lifespan," and could pose a risk to the 2016 election, a new study from the the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law finds.
After a 10 month probe that included interviews with over 100 election officials and experts in every state, the investigators concluded that the threat also extends to "significant percentages of machines" in swing states including Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia.
Entitled America's Voting Machines at Risk, the study warns: "Old voting equipment increases the risk of failures and crashes—which can lead to long lines and lost votes on Election Day—and problems only get worse the longer we wait."
The warning evokes the "hanging chads" scandal that swept George W. Bush into the presidency in 2000 despite the fact that he lost the nationwide popular vote. While the debacle prompted Congress to appropriate $2 billion towards electronic voting systems, that equipment is now quickly becoming outdated, the report warns.
"Technology has changed dramatically in the last decade," said Christopher Famighetti, co-author of the report, in a statement. "Several recent innovations show it’s possible to move toward more affordable and flexible voting machines. States must develop plans to deal with aging machines before 2016, and invest in the next generation of machines for future elections to come."
In my early days at PP, I remember numerous articles about voting machine irregularities, particularly in Florida and South Carolina.
Perhaps you remember like I do, the testimony of Clinton Eugene Curtis. Click here for a video of his testimony.
This from Truth-Out which was used in PP on 22/01/2012
…And now we come to the "First-in-the-South" Republican primary in South Carolina, whereall evidence of how voters vote disappears entirely as the voters will be forced across the entire state to vote on easily-manipulated, oft-failed, 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting systems made by the nation’s largest voting machine company, ES&S. When the machine-reported results are announced tomorrow night they will either be accurate or not. Either way, there will never be a way for anybody to know one way or the other as there will be nothing to prove how voters voted and nothing to "recount", even if anybody wanted to.
Appropriately enough, perhaps, Saturday’s primary in the Palmetto State will offer100% "faith-based" voting, since it will be scientifically impossible to prove that even a single vote for any candidate on the ballot has been recorded accurately by the ES&S iVotronic touch-screens as per any voter’s intent. Known [sic] what we mean, Alvin Greene?…
The machines that will be in use on Saturday in South Carolina are the very same ones that reported an unknown, unemployed, seemingly-illiterate man named Alvin Greene — who had done no campaigning, had no campaign staff, had no campaign money and no campaign website — had unverifiably defeated Vic Rawl, a four-term state legislator and circuit court judge who had campaigned and raised money across the entire state, for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in 2010.
They are the same brand and model of machines (some of them, quite literally, the very same physical machines!) that were used in Florida’s contested Congressional District 13 race for the U.S. Congress in 2006 when they inexplicably lost some 18,000 votes in a race ultimately awarded to the Republican candidate Vern Buchanan over Democrat Christine Jennings by just 369 votes…
I commented then and I stand by it now:
"And those damned voting machines! Let them use the whitewash versions that allow more election fraud in the state and local contests if they really want to, but this is yet another reason that in federal elections, there should be consistency and transparency. States rights be damned when it comes to federal elections. To ensure some modicum of fairness, the system in every state, the rules, the procedures, the machines used should all be the same. After all, this is the whole US that we are talking about, a country that has in the past be thought of as the bastion of democracy. If the US can’t have consistency, fairness and transparency in their own elections, then how can they monitor those of other countries."
Regardless whether you vote with electronic voting machines or mail in ballots like Oregon, you need to be REGISTERED!
National Voter Registration Day is Tuesday, 22 September 2015.
With many US jurisdictions having November elections with registration deadlines in advance of the election, it is imperative to register or update your registration if you have moved. If you have questions about your registration, please contact the League of Women Voters .
Once you are registered, make sure that you
Sep 162015
For me it has been a good day . . . no malfunctioning elevators, no idiot drivers . . . almost peaceful. That is until now! My cat Primo is digging his claws into my hip as to say "I want my dinner"! So I will go and feed my three kids their kibble and peace will return.
Puzzle — Today’s took me 3:39 (average 5:33). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes
Alternet — Last week, as the nation observed the anniversary of 9/11, one could not help but look back at that time and contemplate the reaction by our fellow citizens and foreign nations. Rick Perlstein wrote a very poignant piece a couple of years back about the solidarity that horrible day inspired among all Americans and people around the world — and how it was lost.
Perlstein describes how bills such as the vote to authorize war and the Patriot Act passed nearly unanimously and without debate, which he says happened because in that moment of oneness,”it seemed unimaginable that this extraordinary grant of executive power could possibly be abused.” The man who should have been president, Al Gore, famously said, “George W. Bush is my commander in chief.”
Lefties from Ellen Willis to Barbra Streisand immediately fell into line and supported the president unequivocally. Bush memorably put this new sense of trust and good will into words when he addressed Congress and the nation on September 20, 2001, and asked the American people to pull together for the sake of the nation as a whole. He also admonished them to be decent to the people of Middle Eastern descent who lived among us.
Coming together in a time of crisis is good, is patriotic, because it gives strength to the immediate needs. But there is a risk that the immediate needs will never really be met, that people will go on auto pilot instead of thinking and re-evaluating the situation. That makes for "boogeyman" times of paranoia and the ability of groups, like Republicans, to milk that paranoia. So sad because patriotism is not a boogeyman but an opportunity to grow as a nation.
The Nation — This week, The Wall Street Journal dropped a terrifyingly large number on Senator Bernie Sanders’s upstart campaign, warning that his proposals would carry a “price tag” of $18 trillion over a 10-year period. It’s a number designed to shock and awe and discourage voters from giving the social democrat’s ideas a close look.
But according to the very data cited by The Journal’s Laura Meckler, Sanders’s highly progressive proposals wouldn’t cost the United States a single penny, on net, over that 10-year window. In fact, they’d cost less, overall, than what we’d spend without them.
It’s not hard to understand why. The lion’s share of the “cost”—$15 trillion—would pay for opening up Medicare to Americans of all ages. (Meckler notes that Sanders hasn’t released a detailed proposal, so she relies on an analysis of HR 676, Representative John Conyers’s Medicare-for-all bill.)
Bernie has been very open with the costs of his proposals well before he decided to run. That is, in my mind, one thing he does well. So in my opinion, The Wall Street Journal's number bomb is an attempted distraction from the truth. The Bern has your back!
Raw Story — Christian columnist Chris Queen argued this week that Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ anti-poverty proposals went against biblical teachings because the “God of the Bible is not a socialist.”
In speech to Liberty University on Monday, Sanders urged the Christian conservative students to apply the golden rule — “Do unto others, what you would have them do to you” — to public policy.
“We are living in a time — and I warn all of you if you would, put this in the context of the Bible, not me, in the context of the Bible — we are living in a time where a handful of people have wealth beyond comprehension,” Sanders said. “Do you think it’s moral when 20 percent of the children in this country, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, are living in poverty? Do you think it is acceptable that 40 percent of African American children are living in poverty?”
“[A]nd the Bible speaks to this issue, in a nation and in a world which worships not love of brothers and sisters, not love of the poor and the sick, but worships the acquisition of money and great wealth.”
Where are the Biblical lions when you need them?
My Universe — Nothing more need be said.
Sep 162015
It's me – SoINeedAName (aka, "Nameless" & "Surrogate") – and Lynn's Daily Kos cartoon of Bernie Sanders at Liberty U. from yesterday inspired me to post this:
(Be gentle – it's my first time posting a image file in WordPress – so I have NO idea WRT options for formatting it. And yes, I know that it's more like 80+% of Americans who ID as Christian – but it's just an Op-Ed Cartoon designed to make a point.)
Sep 142015
Well, Sunday afternoon and early evening was spent with my mother at her care home. After I fed her, we sat listening to music . . . Elton John and the Bee Gees. Then a small part of hell broke loose and I was on the run. Although I am a visitor, I am often another pair of eyes and know many of the residents by name. After breaking up a hitting match between two women, I was able to get one into bed and turn the lights out. Then firetrucks and ambulances arrived for something else entirely By the time I arrived home, I was bushed. So here I sit starting the next Open Thread, this one. And Monday was so busy that I won't get this published til just after 10 pm.
NOTE: The hyperlinks work however please right click on them and open in new tab.
Puzzle — Cat Boreon my time 2:55 (4:40) Click Here How did you do?
Short Takes
Huffington Post — The primary objective of Stephen Harper's absurdly-named Fair Elections Act is to prevent hundreds of thousands of Canadians from voting for the NDP, Liberals, Greens, etc.
The Conservatives are, in effect, "cheating" the electoral process again, just as blatantly as in the past. They know that a large number of people — students, marginalized people and First Nations — will have a hard time voting because of the changes. And they know those people would not likely vote Conservative.
Even though the Conservatives are trailing in the polls, it's much too soon to say they will lose the election. Harper's gang of strategists and pollsters have masterminded their way to victory three times, overcoming tough odds each time.
But efforts to help people to register to vote are not as strong as they could be. There needs to be close co-operation among groups to make sure that as many people as possible — particularly people in some 70 ridings where the Conservatives are vulnerable — have the identification they need to vote.
This is taken from the Huffington Post Canaduan edition. Do you notice any similarities to the US system? It would seem that conservatives would deny people the right to vote aka fix the election, or at least tilt the windmill in their direction, no matter what country.
Economic Policy Institute — h/t JL — Between 2000 and the second quarter of 2015, the share of income generated by corporations that went to workers’ wages (instead of going to capital incomes like profits) declined from 82.3 percent to 75.5 percent, as the figure shows. This 6.8 percentage-point decline in labor’s share of corporate income might not seem like a lot, but if labor’s share had not fallen this much, employees in the corporate sector would have $535 billion more in their paychecks today. If this amount was spread over the entire labor force (not just corporate sector employees) this would translate into a $3,770 raise for each worker.
So many corporations have an insatiable appetite for higher and higher profits. As they make more, they fail to recognise who helped get them there . . . their employees. American productivity has been high but corporations are cutting their own throats by growing the inequality gap. That's a pair of die that I would not want to roll.
Alternet — Some people believe that Kentucky—or even all of America—should be subject to biblical law rather than constitutional law. They believe public servants like celebrity clerk Kim Davis owe their highest allegiance to the Bible, which means they shouldn’t be forced to give out unbiblical marriage licenses—like to gay couples. The issue is contested by a host of liberals, secularists, Satanists and moderate Christians. But assuming that Bible believers and religious freedom advocates carry the day, public servants will need to know their Good Book. The following 15-item quiz can be used to screen applicants for county clerk positions or as a guide for those already on the job.
If Kentucky issues only biblical marriage licenses, to which of the following couples should a county clerk grant a license?
1. A man with a consenting woman, but without her father’s permission. No. Numbers 30:1-16 teaches that a single woman’s father has final authority over legal contracts she may enter.
A little bit of humour . . . well I thought so. Read the remaining 16 situations. And this article does not even touch on Davis' marriage record!
Huffington Post — A “humbled” Malcolm Turnbull will be sworn in on Tuesday as Australia’s 29th Prime Minister and has promised a “thoroughly Liberal” and consultative government "committed to freedom, the individual and the market".
The former Communications Minister stunned the nation late on Monday by ousting Tony Abbott in a Liberal party room ballot, 54 to 44, with one informal vote.
At just two years in the job, Abbott becomes the shortest serving Prime Minister since Harold Holt, while Turnbull will be Australia’s sixth Prime Minister in eight years, dating back to John Howard.
In one of TC's surveys, I remarked that with the number of Republican presidential wannabes, I expected some really cut throat action. It seems that Abbott's own party turned on him and he is no longer Prime Minister. I don't think it is so much the policies that will change, but rather the approach to governing. In many regards, Abbott and Harper are alike . . . a belief in their own omnipotence.
My Universe — A bear putting on his happy by dancing the Macarena!
Sep 142015
For our Jewish friends observing Rosh Hashanah:
L'shanah tovah tikatevu
(May you be inscribed for a good year)
Sep 132015
As Puddy Tat always says "Almost every week, Republicans join a competition to see who can say the most outlandish things, and in the process, they push the envelope on just how nutty InsaniTEA can become. I trust that you will believe it, when I tell you that last week was no exception."
2. Mike Huckabee demonstrates once again that there is something deeply wrong with him.
The Huckster has had a very busy week being completely batsh*t crazy. First, he practically got into fisticuffs with fellow right-wing Christian Ted Cruz, as they jostled to position themselves smack dab next to Kentucky’s celebrity scofflaw, gay-marriage refusenik, Kim Davis. So enamored with Davis’ cause of denying same-sex couples the marriage licenses they are lawfully entitled to that Huckabee offered to take her place in jail, coincidentally after she had been released. So no big risk there.
Huckabee further demonstrated his confusion about how this whole Supreme Court thing works when he defended Kim Davis by saying that the Dred Scott decision is still the “law of the land.”
“I’ve been just drilled by TV hosts over the past week, ‘How dare you say that, uh, it’s not the law of the land?’” Huckabee said on Wednesday. “Because that’s their phrase, ‘it’s the law of the land.’ Michael, the Dred Scott decision of 1857 still remains to this day the law of the land which says that black people aren’t fully human. Does anybody still follow the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision?”
Well, ummm, Mike, no. And that’s because, as most 7th graders could tell you, or maybe 5th graders, the terrible Dred Scott decision was, thankfully overturned by the Supreme Court about a century ago.
Finally, Huckabee made excellent use of airtime on Fox towards the end of the week by wondering aloud whether some of the refugees fleeing Syria, often at great peril, might be doing so to get cable TV. They should be vetted, he said.
“Are they just coming because they’ve got cable TV? I’m not trying to be trite. I just don’t know,” is what he said, actually.
Yeah, really.
One Twitter user responded aptly with this:
@daveweigel Huckabee has a keen eye. These homes were obviously abandoned because they didn't have cable.
This is number 2 of five. Have a gander at the other four. Certainly right wing insanity is in full bloom!