Duh’oh...!

OH. And I'm so happy I found another opportunity to use "Homor's brain jpg."

I can recognize the freedoms, like in the quiz. It's easier to recognize them than to generate them. I suppose we take them for granted.

On the other hand, the Simpsons have been on tv for 16 years, I think. They have become part of our family. & there is an iconic visual image and personality for each one.

If children were given icons or pneumonics for the freedoms, they would know them.

My memory is so visual that I cannot memorize things - everything has to be locked to a wholistic concept. On the other hand, once learned, never forgotten.

Freedom of speech .. freedom of assembly .. uhhhh ..

that's mneumonics

Yep. mneumonics for what though?

BTW...for those with kids in school, I still recommend "We the Students" by Jamin Baskin.

G>>>Grievances ...right to the petition for the redress of (grievances)

DiAnne: That photo is hilarious!

And I got the survey right, sparrow! ;)

But I can also name all the members of the Simpsons' family....

Dianne,

The best educational cartoons (other than Sesame Street) are the School House Rock videos.

(singing...) "I'm just a Bill...on Capital Hill..."

Or there's this:

I can't name the Simpsons or the three Idol judges.

Dianne, that is a great picture!

Sparrow
Great videos!

Sparrow, Karen
the photo is from when one of our 7/11s was chosen to be decorated up as an actual "Quickie Mart" from the Simpsons, to promote the movie opening (their full-length movie, which I have yet to see)

Some people didn't let their kids watch the Simpsons but we did, because there was alot of great satire, such as with the nuclear plant and obvious corruption and contamination, and the Mayor who talks exactly like a Kennedy.

On another topic, someone just sent me information on how John McCain exploited the Navajos and I put it up as quickly as I could as I want to take him down as much as put someone else up. It's a race against time.

http://www.democracycellproject.net
(2nd story - the first is this awful Huckabee band doing "Fortunate Son")

R>>>Religion, right to NO ESTABLISHMENT of

A>>> Assembly. Right to peaceful assembly

P>> Press. Freedom of the Press!

Sorry I used this site's link for the McCain/Navaho story -
it's http://www.silencedmajority.blogs.com
I'm just so used to typing both of those after quite some many months!

E>>>Exercise. (Freedom of Religious Exercise. (ie. Exercise your own religion or lack thereof.)

S>>> Speech. The Freedom of Speech

G.R.A.P.E.S.!!!

Thanks - now I can remember!
I have to picture them then figure out the letters then
concepts but only if I get stuck.

I can't even remember acronyms I'm supposed to
remember at work, such as for FIRE and values.

80 districts in NYC had NO OBAMA VOTES SHOWN AT ALL - snafu may gain him more delegates there in her home state
http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2008/02/16/new_york_results/

& on her staff, the same guy who wanted MI and FL to not count delegates now thinks she should receive them

Funny business .. not funny at all

Greetings from Orlando! Just landed here and checked into my hotel. Loving both the United Airlines first class (thanks to frequent flier miles) and my rental Toyota Prius (getting 53 MPG tonight).

Just took the quiz - the multiple choice was too easy, because the two wrong answers included the right to bear arms, which is the Second Amendment.

The ones I can name off of my head:
speech, assembly, religion, and press.
Petition for redress of wrongs escaped me.

FYI I will be in Orlando for the next week. Good to be on Eastern Standard Time, like the blog itself. :)

We are in deep trouble. We desperately need a new Enlightenment in this country - but Enlightenment based on an authentic American model.

The American Enlightenment was a truly ecumenical experience. It involved freethinkers of every persuasion – Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Deists, Unitarians (like John Adams), and Freemasons (like George Washington). The Masons are particularly interesting in this regard - inasmuch as they constituted the original “Illuminati”. Now, we've heard quite a bit from the “paranoid from birth” crowd about the so-called Illuminati as of late, but it's instructive to note that among the first members of this group was the poet and visionary, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – arguably, the most important literary figure of the late 18th and early 19th century. If Goethe is an enemy of humanity, then we have no friends. Goethe believed that every human being who truly strived was ultimately redeemable. We can only hope that he was right.

From my perspective, we have two choices in this country. One choice is to continue the pattern of defining down normalcy so that no one is made to feel uncomfortable or stupid. This would be a mistake, at least in my view. The other choice is to take Jefferson’s vision from “Notes on the State of Virginia” as a model, and instead challenge every American to be the best man or woman they can possibly be – and then to support that effort through an institutional commitment to the ideal of life-long learning. The ideal of life-long learning was one originally floated by Bill Clinton, in his 1992 campaign, and eventually dropped. It was apparently thought too expensive. And yet, can any ideal be more closely tied to our American ideal? I say no. America, at its best, is a nation that celebrates an aristocracy of spirit. Martin Luther King spoke to this in his famous 1963 “I have a dream” speech. King dreamed of an America that citizens would be judged by “the content of their character” rather than the color of their skin.

We need to again cultivate an ideal of “aristocracy of spirit” – and not enable the idea that the people are inevitably right. History does not support such a conclusion – unless one is willing to argue that segregation was a good idea. In an America were 40% of the people in October 2004 held that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11, irregardless of the fact no credible piece of evidence had ever been presented to support such an argument, I argue that our choice of defining down normalcy is compromising the foundations of our democracy. And yet, by the same token, believing in something bigger than you, or in an organic order that challenges the ideology of materialism, is not the same things as being irrational. In fact, I would argue that egotism is the greater enemy. The idea that one speaks for God, or the future, or knows the truth, or inevitably commands the opinion of posterity, has inevitably led to genocide. And make no mistake, materialists can be every bit as egotistical as any religious fundamentalist.

As Herman Hupfeld wrote in 1941, in a phrase that has been ingrained in the American imagination, “the fundamental things apply, as time goes by”. It’s time that America again prized the fundamentals of constitutional democracy.

WTF?

Mystery: NY Results Say Obama Got Zero Votes In 80 Districts

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/16/mystery-ny-results-say-o_n_87020.html

Obamarama at the Seattle Center

Very cute

Christy
So voters aren't just disenfranchised in the south - it sure sounds like it happened in Harlem. & if you happen to read further upthread, I had written about how McCain exploited the Navajo. I will now do anything to keep him from reaching that Oval Office.

McCain's sharp tongue may be his biggest weakness, says MSNBC:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23201300

I still haven't forgiven him for trying to turn California into an Arizona-style right-to-work state.

Ally,

Welcome to Eastern time. I will be mostly gone this week. I have a lot of extra work. So if anyone wants to email me a thread head or two, I would really appreciate the help!

Mystery: NY Results Say Obama Got Zero Votes In 80 Districts »

Black voters are heavily represented in the 94th Election District in Harlem's 70th Assembly District. Yet according to the unofficial results from the New York Democratic primary last week, not a single vote in the district was cast for Senator Barack Obama.

That anomaly was not unique. In fact, a review by The New York Times of the unofficial results reported on primary night found about 80 election districts among the city's 6,106 where Mr. Obama supposedly did not receive even one vote, including cases where he ran a respectable race in a nearby district.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/16/mystery-ny-results-say-o_n_87020.html

Clinton Superdelegate Defects to Obama: "I'm Not That Important to Them"

"This is America. I have freedom of speech and freedom of choice and I'm free to change my vote. I don't have to answer to anyone except God and my conscience," said Christine "Roz" Samuels as she switched her SuperDelegate vote from Clinton to Obama.

Asked if she had heard from the Clintons before or since she made her SuperDelegate switchover, Samuels said, "I haven't heard from the Clintons and to be truthful, I guess I'm not that important to them. I'm only one of 13 SuperDelegates in New Jersey and I'm following my heart."

A member of the Democratic National Committee since 2004, Christine "Roz" Samuels said that she hasn't been answering her phone all day - trying to avoid just this type of call - but by chance she answered her cell phone and explained that her adult children (all Obama supporters) influenced her decision to join the Obama delegate count column.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/beverly-davis/clinton-superdelegate-def_b_86750.html

Dhaw, can you help me please, my computor went down with a virus, and I have lost everything, can you please give me the link for posting photos, and darn it all where I have the link for where I have saved all my pics for posting.
Much appreciated Dhaw, if possible

Kangaroo.

You've posted pictures from photobucket before.

Thanks Sparrow, also do you have the DCP Link that gives us all the instructions for posting

CIA's ambitious post-9/11 spy plan crumbles

The agency spent millions setting up front companies overseas to snag terrorists. Officials now say the bogus firms were ill-conceived and not close enough to Muslim enclaves.
By Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
February 17, 2008
WASHINGTON -- The CIA set up a network of front companies in Europe and elsewhere after the Sept. 11 attacks as part of a constellation of "black stations" for a new generation of spies, according to current and former agency officials.

But after spending hundreds of millions of dollars setting up as many as 12 of the companies, the agency shut down all but two after concluding they were ill-conceived and poorly positioned for gathering intelligence on the CIA's principal targets: terrorist groups and unconventional weapons proliferation networks.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-intel17feb17,0,1331775,full.story

Kangaroo,

The instructions are right above your comment box where it says, "HTML tags."

Thanks Sparrow.

What happened in New York? more vote rigging:

City election officials this week said that their formal review of the results, which will not be completed for weeks, had confirmed some major discrepancies between the vote totals reported publicly — and unofficially — on primary night and the actual tally on hundreds of voting machines across the city.

In the Harlem district, for instance, where the primary night returns suggested a 141 to 0 sweep by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the vote now stands at 261 to 136. In an even more heavily black district in Brooklyn — where the vote on primary night was recorded as 118 to 0 for Mrs. Clinton — she now barely leads, 118 to 116.

Here is one talking point/ explanation of the "errors" in the vote tally in New York:

QUOTE:
“It looked like a lot of the numbers were wrong, probably the result of human error,” said Marcus Cederqvist, who was named executive director of the Board of Elections last month. He said such discrepancies between the unofficial and final count rarely affected the raw vote outcome because “they’re not usually that big.”

@@@@@@@@@@@

If it is random, human error that caused the "mistakes" in counting, then there should have been some districts WHERE HILLARY received Zero votes and Obama received all the votes. But these errors in New York do not appear to be random, but always fall in favor of HIllary.

Obama damn well better get a few more delegates out of it - obvious fraud, or at least negligence but I agree it would be random if it was error.

Obama already met with John Edwards, who was being courted by the Clintons. Hopefully something will come of that.

Anyone calling Hawaii or any other states? Hillary has the lead mostly in Ohio, less so in Texas. Maybe the polling doesn't reflect the cellphones of the young.

If the convention has to be brokered in Denver, let's hope St. John doesn't have too much of a head start or that his association with Romney now doesn't give him too much of an edge.

& if, God forbid, the Superdelegates have to decide, I hope that people like Gore realize that no matter how many favors were done them by the Clintons or vice versa, it's a new day. They should follow the will of the people and maybe try something a little new for once.

Then when there is finally a president, if it's not too late, maybe some Democrats will actually talk about the war instead of putting it off because they're too afraid of being criticized for being weak on security.

McCain has said he'll chase Bin Laden to the gates of hell and he also pushed the Navaho off their land onto a toxic wast dump (see http://www.silencedmajority.blogs.com, where there are also videos of McCain and Obama events and more about the cheating in NY.)

McCain is too old. He's worse than Bush. As Buchanan said, he'll get right up in Putin's face. He'll take us to war. He'll bomb bomb bomb Iran. I would vote for the Clintons before McCain but really do not want any of those '70s people.

I am too old to be President. Why should they try it? If McCain had two terms he'd be in his '80s. We already had the senile Reagan with his wife running the country via Astrology.

We need something new. We still have not tried what Marvin Gaye recommended.

Mother, mother
There's too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother
There's far too many of you dying
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today - Ya

Father, father
We don't need to escalate
You see, war is not the answer
For only love can conquer hate
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today

Picket lines and picket signs
Don't punish me with brutality
Talk to me, so you can see
Oh, what's going on
What's going on
Ya, what's going on
Ah, what's going on

In the mean time
Right on, baby
Right on
Right on

Father, father, everybody thinks we're wrong
Oh, but who are they to judge us
Simply because our hair is long
Oh, you know we've got to find a way
To bring some understanding here today
Oh

Picket lines and picket signs
Don't punish me with brutality
Talk to me
So you can see
What's going on
Ya, what's going on
Tell me what's going on
I'll tell you what's going on - Uh
Right on baby
Right on baby

DLC/ corporate Democrats are trying to take Kucinich out in the primary:

Did anyone else see the bizarre McCain interview on Larry King Live? Sorry, I'm a couple days behind here, but I was in PDX for the week.

Larry King kept presenting McCain with situations where he (McCain) had directly contradicted himself and then McCain, over and over, had to paint himself out of a corner...except that he didn't - he tried to explain how he could be both simultaneously for and against something.

It was rather disheartening to watch and made me wonder if all McCain's mental faculties were still in full force.

I have wondered the same thing ..

V--I didn't see.

Saved these two articles on economics for you though.

Lenders Try to Fend Off Laws on Subprime Loans

Advocates in more than a dozen states and cities are pressing to pass laws limiting so-called predatory lending, rousing lenders into a coordinated counterattack that has managed to fend off or weaken some of the farthest-reaching proposals.

The latest battle is in Philadelphia, where Citigroup, Household International and other lenders are seeking to derail a measure scheduled for a vote tomorrow in the City Council.

The spate of proposals is in response to what advocates of the measures say is the spread of unscrupulous lending practices and rising foreclosures of inner-city homes. While similar legislation has floundered in Congress, advocates have scored victories in several places, including North Carolina, Chicago and Washington.

Lenders say the proposals will curtail access to credit for many families and create an awkward patchwork of regulations across the country. Among the industry's advisers are Connie Mack, the former Republican senator from Florida, and Thomas F. McLarty, former chief of staff for President Bill Clinton.

North Carolina took the lead in banning predatory lending with a law passed in 1999, and the issue captured the interest of politicians elsewhere, particularly in big cities that have seen high numbers of foreclosures on high-fee, high-interest loans known in the industry as subprime.

Snip...

(Go to link)

Next article is from Daily Kos's Bondad: The crisis is so bad the financial press turns bolshie

(Actually, he has a new one up today. I'm too depressed seeing my 401k and my hubby's 401k lose a quarter of it's value in one quarter to read it anymore!)

Heard on NPR that California faces another budget crisis - $10 billion to $14 billion shortfall. The Governator was talking about cutting funding to schools, colleges and reducing the prison population (exactly what has been proposed in Michigan since we have had budget crises for the last 3 years or so).

This is from our friend Shahid:

Way cool!

DOES CONTEMPT OF CONGRESS MEAN ANYTHING, REALLY?

MIERS AND BOLTEN IN CONTEMPT..........

This is from Nancy Pelosi's You Tube site:

The House debates H.Res. 982, which provides for the adoption of H.Res. 979, recommending that the House of Representatives find Harriet Miers, former White House Counsel, and Joshua Bolten, the White House Chief of Staff, in contempt of Congress for refusal to comply with subpoenas issued by the Judiciary Committee. These subpoenas were issued as part of the Committee's investigation into the firings of a number of United States Attorneys and matters concerning the politicization of the Justice Department. This resolution also provides for adoption of H.Res. 980 - Authorizing the Committee on the Judiciary to initiate or intervene in judicial proceedings to enforce certain subpoenas. Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks in favor. (less)

It's eerily quiet here on the blog (at least the Open Thread) this evening. Can't check the chat due to flaky Internet connection which balks at anything other than text.

Re: possible extra votes for Obama in NYC - if there is voter suppression going on, even in NYC, whether in favor of one or the other, this is disgusting. Why vote when your vote doesn't necessarily count?

Ralph

Re: California budget cuts

Like most states, California has three sources of income: income tax, property tax, and sales tax. (Actually, there is a fourth - the ever-shrinking federal aid - but that's another story.)

Property tax was frozen by 1978's Proposition 13, which capped property tax increases to 2% a year, no matter how high your property values went up. This, combined with California's low 1% property tax rate to start with, forces the state's hands. And honestly, think about it, nobody, not even diehard liberals, likes a property tax hike (as in undoing Prop 13).

Republicans want to raise the sales tax (currently 7.25% plus county taxes, adding up to 8.5% in San Francisco, 8.25% in Los Angeles, 7.75% in Orange County and San Diego, etc.), while lowering income tax. Democrats want to do the opposite. And since budget decisions require 2/3 majority, and neither party has it (CA may be "blue" but the Republicans have tremendous strength in the south and inland areas, adding up to about 40-45% state legislature representation), budgets are always a gridlock.

This forced some drastic measures in the past, such as former Governor Gray Davis tripling the car registration fees (which led to his recall, and which is why no sane auto industry employee in California votes Democratic). But the Governator will not do anything along these lines.

Education cuts have forced my sister's LA Community College radiology program to cut half of its students, including her, with no promise of ever being able to continue. She only needed 6 more months to complete her studies, but with the Governator's education cuts, she's stranded, and now she must take ultrasound courses at a private school for $30K. My mother, needless to say, is so incensed that she will never vote for another Republican.

More on California

Proposition 13 still allows voters to tax themselves through local bond measures and other means.

But Proposition 13 also requires that these measures be passed by 2/3 majority of the voters. League of Women Voters and other organizations have asked to lower this threshold to 55%, but that failed miserably.

This means that a very determined 1/3 of the voters (namely, the elderly who don't want to pay school taxes, as well as anti-government neoliberals) can easily block any local property tax increases, no matter how much the schools need the money for infrastructure, teachers, and other expenditures.

The end result: California's school systems went from among the best in the nation a generation ago, to among the worst in the nation today.

Of course, the Republicans can always blame the immigrants and their drain on public schools, since at most inner-city schools, if your last name doesn't end with Z, you're an oddball. The worst scums are the Asian nouveaux-riche immigrants who crowd the best school districts in the state, but refuse any and all property tax increases that fund those great schools.

sparrow

I might have to submit my sister's education situation to you, as a thread header on education, taxes, and all the other fun stuff.

Hi all,

Totally OT here, but I heard this great piece on NPR yesterday on a show called "Speaking of Faith" about Israelis and Palestinians who have lost loved ones in the violence coming together to try to find peace.

Thought you'd like to listen. There's a documentary as well.

The radio story is called "No More Taking Sides"
The documentary is called "Encounter Point"

http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/nomore/index.shtml

Republicans want to raise the sales tax (currently 7.25% plus county taxes, adding up to 8.5% in San Francisco, 8.25% in Los Angeles, 7.75% in Orange County and San Diego, etc.), while lowering income tax. Democrats want to do the opposite. And since budget decisions require 2/3 majority, and neither party has it (CA may be "blue" but t

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

The Republicans in Michigan have pulled every trick in the book - accounting and taxation wise - to balance Michigan's budget.

They raised sales taxes;

They raised state fees

They raised penalties and fines

They have raided the cigarette settlement money for any purpose they wish (Michigan spends virtually nothing on smoking prevention or smoking cessation)

They raised the tax on cigarettes

They raised hotel/motel tax (I believe)

One of our state's biggest money makers is the state lottery, basically taking money from the poor in order to lower taxes on the rich. (Lottery and gaming in Michigan were either illegal or very strictly regulated until the 1970's when the state started its lottery system.)

They have cut aid to counties, cities and townships which they had hoped would go unnoticed by the average voter and citizen.

NOW, they have run out of tricks...

The sacred cow for the Republicans, of course, is the income tax - the want to LOWER the income tax!!!! Even when the budget has not been balanced

One other neat irony of Michigan budget crisis:

The Republicans supported raising the fees on mobile home lots - I think they were doubled. Of course, how many mobile home owners would notice why their fees went up or that the Republican legislature was to blame.

How many mobile home owners even bother to vote?? (They are a lot like the cigarette smokers - politically illiterate and powerless.)

Well, Well, Well, what do you know?

Musharraf's Party Concedes Defeat, Opposition Celebrates Landmark Election Victory

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3387244.ece

Banks "Quietly" Borrow $50B From Fed: Report

The newspaper said the use of the Fed's Term Auction Facility (TAF), which allows banks to borrow at relatively attractive rates against a wide range of their assets, saw borrowing of nearly $50 billion of one-month funds from the Fed by mid-February.

The Financial Times said the move has sparked unease among some analysts about the stress developing in opaque corners of the U.S. banking system and the banks' growing reliance on indirect forms of government support.

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1821384420080219?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

McCain Campaign Banked on Taxpayer-Funded Bailout

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/02/mccain_campaign_banked_on_taxp.php

Ralph

California has lottery too (the single largest single-state lottery in the nation), but it took Proposition 36 (I think) in 1984, approved by the voters themselves, to legalize and start it.

About 30% of its revenues are spent on education, 50% on prizes, and 20% on administrative stuff.

Ralph

On another gambling note, California relies heavily on Indian casinos for its revenues. Proposition 5 from 1998 started those casinos. Propositions 94-97 extended those deals just this month.

Republicans love Indian casinos because tax increases are not needed. Democrats love them because the Indian tribes have an income source to fund themselves (education and otherwise). Voters love them because they don't like corporate Nevada casino moguls like Steve Wynn (remember that two, just two, moguls control all of the Vegas strip).

Hola Ally, My Thoughts On Orlando...
If I never set foot in Orlando, Florida again, it'd be fine with me.

I swear, my wallet had an evil magnet in it that was diabolically drawn to it like crack for the first 10 years of my kids lives.

Magic King Dumb

Speaking of Florida...

Ailing Castro steps down as Cuba’s leader
Revolutionary icon, not seen in public since 2006, had ruled for 49 years

Cuban leader says he will not return to lead the country, retiring as head of state nearly half a century after seizing power in an armed revolution.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23229795/

Lawyers, Guns and Money
by Warren Zevon

Well, I went home with the waitress
The way I always do
How was I to know
She was with the Russians, too

I was gambling in Havana
I took a little risk
Send lawyers, guns and money
Dad, get me out of this

I'm the innocent bystander
Somehow I got stuck
Between the rock and the hard place
And I'm down on my luck
And I'm down on my luck
And I'm down on my luck

Now I'm hiding in Honduras
I'm a desperate man
Send lawyers, guns and money
The sh*t has hit the fan

Send lawyers, guns and money...

KIGALI, Rwanda (CNN) -- Cuban leader Fidel Castro's decision to step down should spark "a democratic transition" for the communist island nation, President Bush said Tuesday.

"The international community should work with the Cuban people to begin to build institutions that are necessary for democracy and eventually this transition ought to lead to free and fair elections," Bush said at a news conference in Rwanda during his five-nation tour of Africa.

"I believe that the change from Fidel Castro ought to begin ... a democratic transition."

Bush added, "The United States will help the people of Cuba realize the blessings of liberty."

more...
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/19/us.castro/index.html