Here is a series of three videos about her:
Blogging the world around me.
Coverage of the meetings of the Macon County Board of County Commissioners.
Coverage of the meetings of the Franklin Town Board of Aldermen.
Coverage of the meetings of the Macon County School Board.
Photos from my photoblog.
A cool-water anomaly known as La Niña occupied the tropical Pacific Ocean throughout 2007 and early 2008. In April 2008, scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that while the La Niña was weakening, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation—a larger-scale, slower-cycling ocean pattern—had shifted to its cool phase.
Source: Watt's Up With That?This image shows the sea surface temperature anomaly in the Pacific Ocean from April 14–21, 2008. The anomaly compares the recent temperatures measured by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E) on NASA’s Aqua satellite with an average of data collected by the NOAA Pathfinder satellites from 1985–1997. Places where the Pacific was cooler than normal are blue, places where temperatures were average are white, and places where the ocean was warmer than normal are red.
The cool water anomaly in the center of the image shows the lingering effect of the year-old La Niña. However, the much broader area of cooler-than-average water off the coast of North America from Alaska (top center) to the equator is a classic feature of the cool phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). The cool waters wrap in a horseshoe shape around a core of warmer-than-average water. (In the warm phase, the pattern is reversed).
Source: Yad Vashem
Six million Jews, among them one-and-a-half million children, were murdered in the Shoah while the world remained silent. The worldwide Holocaust memorial project “Unto Every Person There is a Name”, now in its nineteenth consecutive year, is a unique project designed to perpetuate their memory as individuals and restore their identity and dignity, through the public recitation of their names on Yom Hashoah – Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day. By personalizing the individual tragedies of the Jewish victims of Nazi Germany and its collaborators, this project counters persistent efforts by enemies of the State of Israel and the Jewish people to deny the reality of the Holocaust and cast it as history’s seminal hoax. “Unto Every Person” also defies attempts to universalize this genocide and cast off its principal characteristic as a unique calamity of the Jewish people, while also building appreciation of the Shoah's tragic impact on the Jewish reality until today.
Source: Michelle MalkinSpeaking before an audience that included Marion Barry, Cornel West, Malik Zulu Shabazz of the New Black Panther Party and Nation of Islam official Jamil Muhammad, Wright praised Louis Farrakhan, defended the view that Zionism is racism, accused the United States of terrorism, repeated his view that the government created the AIDS virus to cause the genocide of racial minorities, stood by other past remarks (”God damn America”) and held himself out as a spokesman for the black church in America.
In front of 30 television cameras, Wright’s audience cheered him on as the minister mocked the media and, at one point, did a little victory dance on the podium. It seemed as if Wright, jokingly offering himself as Obama’s vice president, was actually trying to doom Obama; a member of the head table, American Urban Radio’s April Ryan, confirmed that Wright’s security was provided by bodyguards from Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam.
Obama’s problem associations with Wright, Rezko, and Ayers have really got the creative juices flowing on the left as they twist themselves into rhetorical and intellectual pretzels trying to downplay or dismiss, their candidate’s monumentally poor judgement in hanging around with these folks for much of his adult life.
Some may read this apologia for Obama’s associations from Reed Hundt at TPM Cafe and shake their heads in wonderment at the cluelessness of the author. Others may marvel at the sheer brazenness of Hundt’s dismissive comments about Ayers and Wright, admiring the guts it took to reveal oneself as an idiot.
Still others may laugh at the appellation “Swiftboating” as a descriptive for people who tell the truth about what Wright and Ayers have sermonized and accomplished in the past that makes them such problematic friends. Even the candidate has accepted as true what these hateful FOO’s (Friends of Obama) have said and done thus making the charge “Swiftboating” Obama pretty silly – as if the candidate would “Swiftboat” himself.
But as an anthropological exhibit showing an utter lack of honesty and integrity by the left in commenting about people that ordinary Americans find despicable, Hundt nails it...
Insurgents have put together hundreds of propaganda videos ranting about how oh-so-terrible the American troops in Iraq are. But this is the first flick I've seen that directly and exclusively targets the private military contractors like Blackwater that have become a hallmark of the Iraq occupation.
Earlier this week, the Sunni insurgent group Islamic Army of Iraq released "Bloody Contracts," in English, Spanish, French and Arabic. "Crimes against Iraqis happen on a daily basis done by unleashed barbarians dressed in security uniforms, criminals protected by law and instructed by the Bush administration to murder for the sake of killing," the IAI's deadpan narrator tells his audience. A cartoon of a masked gunman shooting at a black helicopter is in the background.
Source: SF GatePresidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday he would not use nuclear weapons "in any circumstance" to fight terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan, drawing criticism from Hillary Rodham Clinton and other Democratic rivals.
"I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance," Obama said, with a pause, "involving civilians." Then he quickly added, "Let me scratch that. There's been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That's not on the table."
Obama was responding to a question by the Associated Press about whether there was any circumstance where he would be prepared or willing to use nuclear weapons in Afghanistan and Pakistan to defeat terrorism and al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
"There's been no discussion of using nuclear weapons and that's not a hypothetical that I'm going to discuss," Obama said after a Capitol Hill breakfast with constituents.
When asked whether his answer also applied to the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons, he said it did.
Source: WNDABC's Chris Cuomo asked Clinton what she would do if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons, according to the network.
"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president we will attack Iran," Clinton said. "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."
Source: The Left/Right Knockout written by Alex WallenweinA Strategy
Some Meetups are already giving up hope, but there is a way for us to get Ron Paul the nomination, and it is absolutely doable.
In a nutshell: If enough delegations sit out the first and second vote, McCain won't get his required majority, and the national convention will become a brokered one- which means anything goes.
There are two main hurdles to accomplishing this:
1. To be even presented for nomination, Ron must be able to "demonstrate the support" of a majority of the delegates from at least five states.
2. Getting enough state delegations to sit out the first two votes won't be easy but it is totally within the realm of the possible!.
What depresses so many delegates is that in order to even be selected as delegates to go to the National Convention, they are required by state party rules to sign a pledge that they will "support" John McCain. That is not the end of the story, however.
The only consequence of that is that a delegate's vote for anyone other than McCain will simply not be counted.
That's all!
There are no legal ramifications for breaking that pledge. There are only possible ethical concerns. These ethical concerns, however, are completely swept aside by the possibility of simply NOT VOTING the first time around.
The RNC's party rules expressly contemplate and acknowledge that State Delegations may choose to sit out a vote. Rule 37c states:
(c) In balloting, if any delegation shall pass when its name is called, then at the conclusion of the roll call all delegations which passed shall be called in the order herein before established. No delegation shall be allowed to change its vote until all delegations which passed shall have been given a second opportunity to vote.
That means (a) it's ok to abstain from voting, and (b) the only consequence is that the passing delegation(s) must be given another chance to vote before any other delegations are released from their pledges.The Big Challenge:
The big hurdle to climb is the requirement of paragraph (b) of Rule 40, which states that in order to even be presented for nomination, a candidate must be able to demonstrate the support of a majority of the delegates of at least five states. Here is the rule:
(b) Each candidate for nomination for President of the United States and Vice President of the United States shall demonstrate the support of a majority of the delegates from each of five (5) or more states, severally, prior to the presentation of the name of that candidate for nomination.
The rule does not define what precise "demonstration of support" is required. In other words, it is not necessary that Ron Paul must have won a majority of the "beauty contest" (popular primary) vote in five states in order to be entitled to all their delegates.
What is a demonstration of support?
A candidate can ask that the delegations of five states where he believes he has enough support be polled by roll call so as to enable him to demonstrate that he has the support of a majority of delegates then and there at the National Convention.
That means we have to get to work on the delegates of each state after the state conventions are over.
Many Republicans hate McCain, or at least dislike him.
There is a huge arsenal of issues on which McCain has exposed himself as a sell-out to conservative Republicans: national sovereignty, free speech (McCain/Feingold), amnesty, guns, abortion you name it, he has voted against conservative values on these.
There is also evidence he "sang" in Vietnam, costing untold numbers of his fellow POWs their life.
It should not be too difficult to convince conservative delegates not to vote for him with that evidence especially in light of the fact that the party rules explicitly contemplate the "passing" of votes by state delegations!
The Strategy:
The strategy therefore must be to get as many Ron Paul delegates selected to represent their state at the National Convention.
That means our delegates need to stay low key.
Resolutions are a dead giveaway, especially when they are fought over things like opposition to the war, or abolishing the Federal Reserve and the IRS, all signature issues of Ron Paul.
So, the best plan is to shut up, move along, do what you ave to do to get selected, sign the pledge to "support" McCain (it doesn't say you promise not to abstain!) and just get in short of outright lying, of course.
If there are any ethical concerns about this supposed "stealth tactic", think about what ethical concerns you may have if you allow McCain to become president by your inaction.
Old guard Republicans may complain about supposed "stealth" or deception-but what is it their preferred candidates do when they swear in their oath of office to "support and defend" the Constitution and then do the opposite?
What is more unethical?
What is more damaging to the country?
What is more destructive of the very foundation of our government and our way of life?
My question is: As long as there is even a sliver of a chance to get Ron Paul the GOP nomination why give up??
Why resign yourself to debating endlessly about the fine points of endless party resolutions and platforms knowing they are routinely ignored, anyway?
These party honchos and their favorite sell-out candidates constantly ignore and violate even our Constitution! What makes you think they won't utterly ignore whatever provisions we manage to get into the national party platform?
Is that worth the price of being spotted and "marked for death" by the party honchos at the state conventions? I don't think so.
Not when you consider what's really at stake.
So, please, please, please don't give up! Ron Paul still has plenty of fight left in him at his advanced age. Why shouldn't we?
Let's fight for what's important (Ron Paul winning) - not for what routinely gets ignored!
"I, Sylvanus Wood, of Woburn, in the county of Middlesex, and commonwealth of Massachusetts, aged seventy-four years, do testify and say that on the morning of the 19th of April, 1775, I was an inhabitant of Woburn, living with Deacon Obadiah Kendall; that about an hour before the break of day on said morning, I heard the Lexington bell ring, and fearing there was difficulty there, I immediately arose, took my gun and, with Robert Douglass, went in haste to Lexington, which was about three miles distant.
When I arrived there, I inquired of Captain Parker, the commander of the Lexington company, what was the news. Parker told me he did not know what to believe, for a man had come up about half an hour before and informed him that the British troops were not on the road. But while we were talking, a messenger came up and told the captain that the British troops were within half a mile. Parker immediately turned to his drummer, William Diman, and ordered him to beat to arms, which was done. Captain Parker then asked me if I would parade with his company. I told him I would. Parker then asked me if the young man with me would parade. I spoke to Douglass, and he said he would follow the captain and me..."
The Russian Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft ferrying Expedition 16 commander Peggy Whitson, of NASA, and her crew to Earth touched down about 295 miles (475 km) short of its target zone on the central Asian steppes of Kazakhstan.
"The crew is alive and well. The landing was nominal, but by a backup design," said Anatoly Perminov, chief of Russia's Federal Space Agency, after the 4:30 a.m. EDT (0830 GMT) landing. "It was a ballistic descent and all the cosmonauts are feeling fine."
A ballistic reentry is one in which a Soyuz reenters at a steeper than normal angle that subjects astronaut crews to higher forces of gravity , NASA officials said.
Cosmonauts returning from the space station last fall also experienced a ballistic reentry, as did the crew of Expedition 6 in 2003.
Whitson returned home alongside Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, an Expedition 16 flight engineer, after a six-month mission that added new science and living space to the $100 billion station. South Korea's first astronaut, 29-year-old bioengineer So-yeon Yi, also accompanied the Expedition 16 crew to conclude her own 10-day spaceflight to the ISS.
Malenchenko, as Soyuz commander, used a satellite phone to contact recovery forces to relay that the crew was in good health.
HAZLETON, Pa. (AP) — Former Republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes announced Tuesday night that he has left the GOP and is considering joining the Constitution Party.Keyes, who also ran as a Republican to challenge Barack Obama's U.S. Senate bid in Illinois in 2004, says he is talking with leaders and rank-and-file members of the Constitution Party.
"They're considering me, I'm considering them," Keyes said in a conference call late Tuesday night. "We have so much in common that I find it hard to believe we won't be able to work out a common basis for working together."
Keyes singled out the nation's present "border issue" as a reason he is leaving the GOP, saying it is a "threat to the sovereignty to the American people."
"There are clear signs that our leaders no longer have an allegiance to the sovereign people of the United States," Keyes said.
Source: USA TODAY
Commentary
Source: Breit Bart (via Drudge)
Obama's Pastor:
Some liberal commentators have downplayed the effect of Barack Obama’s fundraising speech at a San Francisco fundraiser last week. But that’s wishful thinking. Along with the revelations about Obama’s pastor Jeremiah Wright, his remarks in San Francisco will haunt him not only in the upcoming primaries in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia, but also in the general election against John McCain, assuming he gets the Democratic nomination.
To win in November, a Democratic presidential candidate has to carry most of the industrial heartland states that stretch from Pennsylvania to Missouri. That becomes even more imperative if a Democrat can’t carry Florida–and because of his relative weakness in South Florida, Obama is unlikely to do so against McCain. Ruy Teixeira and I have calculated that in the heartland states, a Democratic presidential candidate has to win from 45 to 48 percent of the white working class vote. In some states, like West Virginia and Kentucky, the percentage is well over a majority.
Some Democrats insist that Obama need not worry about these states because he will be able to make up for a defeat in Ohio or even Pennsylvania with a victory in Virginia or Colorado. But in Virginia, McCain will be able to draw upon coastal suburbanites closely tied to the military. These voters backed Democrats like Chuck Robb and Jim Webb, who are both veterans, but they may not go for Obama. And in the Southwest, McCain will be able to challenge Obama among Hispanics. So to win in November, Obama will have to win almost all of these heartland states. Which is a problem, because even before he uttered his infamous words about these voters “clinging” to guns, religion, abortion, and fears about free trade, Obama looked vulnerable in the region. A look at the white working class’s relationship with earlier Democratic candidates underscores the various reasons why.
Source: The New Republic
Hat Tip: Race 4 2008
Source: Boston GlobeJohn McCain called today for a federal gasoline tax holiday this summer, his latest proposal to shore up the faltering economy and show he is in touch with struggling Americans.
The suspension of the 18.4-cent federal gas tax and 24.4-cent levy on diesel fuel would go from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Gas prices are headed to record highs this summer approaching $3.50 a gallon for regular unleaded.
"The effect will be an immediate economic stimulus -- taking a few dollars off the price of a tank of gas every time a family, a farmer, or trucker stops to fill up," he said in prepared remarks. "And because the cost of gas affects the price of food, packaging, and just about everything else, these immediate steps will help to spread relief across the American economy."
Kenneth Copeland Ministries, one of six so-called mega-churches at the center of a U.S. Senate Finance Committee investigation, has informed the committee that it will not cooperate with the probe, citing its concerns about the government targeting certain Christian churches, as well as concerns about privacy and potential First Amendment violations.
“The church is deeply concerned that the information Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is seeking could be used to subject the church and its members to public stigma, scorn, and obloquy,” Lawrence Swicegood, communications director for Kenneth Copeland Ministries (KCM), said in a letter responding to the committee’s request for a range of financial data and other information, including the names and addresses of board members and the names and addresses of people responsible for the church’s audio and video production.
“The church also has grave concerns with the conclusion that this inquiry ‘does not infringe upon First Amendment rights,’” said Swicegood.
“The six ministries under investigation all share a common theology based on the sincerely held religious belief that prosperity in all areas of one’s life is an outward sign of the fulfillment of God’s promises contained in the Bible,” he added.
Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters nationwide disagree with Barack Obama’s statement that people in small towns “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 25% agree with the Democratic frontrunner while 19% are not sure.
Partisan and ideological differences suggest that the comments are more likely to be a factor in the General Election than in the Primaries. A plurality of politically liberal voters—46%--agree with Obama’s statement while 33% disagree. Moderate voters take the opposite view and disagree by a 51% to 27% margin. Seventy-four percent (74%) of conservatives disagree with Obama’s statement, only 12% agree.
Democrats are fairly evenly divided—34% agree with Obama and 43% disagree. Generally, Obama supporters agree with him while Hillary Clinton’s supporters disagree.
Republicans overwhelmingly disagree with the statement and unaffiliated voters disagree by a two-to-one margin.
WASHINGTON — The independent label sticks to John McCain because he antagonizes fellow Republicans and likes to work with Democrats.
But a different label applies to his actual record: conservative.
The likely Republican presidential nominee is much more conservative than voters appear to realize. McCain leans to the right on issue after issue, not just on the Iraq war but also on abortion, gay rights, gun control and other issues that matter to his party's social conservatives.
The four-term Arizona senator, a longtime member of the Armed Services Committee, criticized the earlier handling of the war but has been a crucial ally in President Bush's effort to increase and maintain U.S. forces in Iraq.
Besides the war, McCain agrees broadly with Bush and other conservatives on:
_Abortion. McCain promises to appoint judges who, in the mold of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, are likely to limit the reach of the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. McCain's record is not spotless on abortion: He said once, in 1999, that Roe v. Wade should not be overturned. But that amounted to a blip in an otherwise unbroken record of opposing abortion rights for women.
"I am pro-life and an advocate for the rights of man everywhere in the world," McCain told the Conservative Political Action Conference in February. "Because to be denied liberty is an offense to nature and nature's Creator."
_Gay rights. McCain opposes gay marriage. True, he does not support a federal ban on gay marriage on grounds the issue traditionally has been decided by states. But McCain worked to ban gay marriage in Arizona. He also supports the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, and he opposed legislation to protect gay people from job discrimination or hate crimes.
"I'm proud to have led an effort in my home state to change our state constitution and to protect the sanctity of marriage as between a man and woman," he told CNN in March. "I will continue to advocate for those fundamental principals of our party and our faith."
_Gun control. McCain voted against a ban on assault-style weapons and for shielding gun-makers and dealers from civil suits. He did vote in favor of requiring background checks at gun shows, but in general he sides with the National Rifle Association in favor of gun rights.
When the Supreme Court held arguments last month on Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban, McCain said it was "a landmark case for all Americans who believe, as I do, that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms."
What are these guys trying to do? Convert the real conservatives to support him?
If HuffPo puts out too many more pieces like this...I may have to get out and campaign for McCain!
You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them.And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations
What is really entertaining is to watch Obama's Apologists dance and twist and blame other people, a classic example of misdirection and ad hominem:
This is the height of hypocrisy from a man who attended a church of hatred for 20 years.
Who himself is...1) anti-trade - except for Commie Cuba which goes along with his commie mentor and friends
2) clings to false religion of hateful, black liberation theology for 20 years
3) antipathy towards people unlike him. attends a race-baiting, conspiracy-laden, false teaching, anti-Christian "black values only" church.
4) will talk to criminal tyrants around the world, including Syria, Iran, Cuba(commies, extremist islamic zealots), but refuses to even meet with a democratically elected President of Columbia who has lifted Columbia out of civil war, reduced violence, reconciled many different people, where millions rally for him, who has expanded freedoms and liberty in justice, media and work, who has protected the people from Communist FARC cocaine drug pushers who buy weapons from the sell of illegal drugs to Americans. Anti-Trade Obama for those "unlike him"
5) refuses to vote for a free-trade agreement to lift tarriffs on goods sold to Columbia that increase jobs for Americans.
Hillary Clinton, because her campaign is desperate, and John McCain, because he’s a Republican, have both jumped on this statement. Accusations of a Barack Obama being an elitist (McCain may be the richest man in the Senate and Hillary Clinton who made over $109 million in the last 7 years are calling Obama elitist - that’s rich…pun intended) and not respecting gunowners or religious God-fearing people have been recklessly thrown out.
On the “8 Stages of Liberal/Progressive Discussion When They Know They Are Busted,” a #2 is “Find some sort of moral equivalence or a story from 30 years ago saying a Conservative did something sort of similar.”
BARR POLLS 7% IN POTENTIAL PRESIDENTIAL BID;
Numbers Boost Exploratory Committee Action
In cases where there are three parties operating under the simple-majority single-ballot systems the electors soon realize that their votes are wasted if they continue to give them to the third party: whence their natural tendency to transfer their vote to the less evil of its two adversaries in order to prevent the success of the greater evil. This "polarization" effect works to the detriment of a new party so long as it is the weakest party but it is turned against the less favored of its older rivals as soon as the new party outstrips it.
So third parties who want to break out of this vicious cycle should not support plurality, IRV, or Condorcet with rank-orderings as votes. They should support Range (or perhaps Approval) voting, or the top-2-runoff (second round) system. But as you can see from tables of real-world data, Range voting leads to a lot more pro-third party votes, at least initially, than Approval. I repeat, a lot more. That is enough to get third parties off the ground. It won't be enough by itself to make them actually win (they will still be well behind the top 2 parties in terms of money, organization, experience, and present-day voter appeal), but it will level the playing field allowing them to win if they have the best candidate once they have acquired enough funds and organization – which it would then be possible for them gradually to acquire, since they would no longer be continually stomped-on.
CROWD FUNDING
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