One of the fun little features I post over at my own blog, Oh Well: A Commentary, is a little item called Monday Schoolhouse Rocks. This is a little feature which I post the great Schoolhouse Rock videos that I grew up watching on ABC's Saturday morning cartoons during the 1970s. These were the short, educational cartoons which incorporated science, mathematics, English grammer, and American history to music, song, and animation.
So today, I found little Schoolhouse Rock video called Dollars and Sense. The Dollars and Sense video teaches us the concept of interest, and how it applies to either the saving of money, or the loaning of money.
About a week ago, I wrote a post regarding this strange relationship between the GOP presidential candidates and Hollywood "Macho Men." Rocky and Rambo star Sylvester Stallone endorsed Arizona Senator John McCain. Invasion U.S.A and Walker Texas Ranger star Chuck Norris endorsed Mike Huckabee. And there were political rumors a-flying last year regarding the secret summit between Mitt Romney and the Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger, and whether the Governator would endorse Romney.
Well, the Governator has made his endorsement--and it wasn't for Mitt Romney!
It seems we can't keep a good wacko-liberal down. Ralph Nader is jumping into the 2008 race with his own exploratory website. From Boston.Com:
Ralph Nader, the consumer activist whom many Democrats blame for costing them the White House in 2000, launched an exploratory website today.
The site asks "Which side are you on?" and features a litany of criticisms of corporate America.
In 2000, Democrat Al Gore won the popular vote but was edged out in the Electoral College by Republican George W. Bush after the US Supreme Court stopped a recount in Florida.
Nader, the Green Party candidate, won about 2.8 million votes nationwide, or nearly 3 percent of the vote. But his vote in close, key states helped swing the election to Bush.
Ralph Nader, get your fucking ass out of this race. This country can not afford to have you run you insurgent campaign!
John McCain says he's ready to run the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, just like Rocky Balboa did, now that he's got the support of actor Sylvester Stallone.
Stallone told Fox News' "FOX & Friends" that he's backing the Arizona senator's bid for the White House.
"I like McCain a lot. A lot," Stallone said. He called the Republican the right character for the times. "The script that's being written — and the reality — is pretty brutal and pretty hard-edged like a rough action film, and you need somebody who's been in that to deal with it."
So Rocky has now endorsed the Straight Talk Express. This brings up an interesting question of whether Rocky can talk straight to McCain, or will he scream out, "Yo McCain!"
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — The house that Ronald Reagan built is in danger of collapsing.
The coalition of fiscal conservatives, national security conservatives, anti-tax activists and social conservatives that rallied behind Reagan in 1980 and has defined the Republican Party ever since is coming apart at the seams heading into the 2008 election.
It is interesting how each of the GOP candidates are invoking Reagan's name, as the entire coalition collapses into itself due to the 28 years of failed Reaganomics, and the nearly eight years of Bush neoconservativism that has its roots in the hawkish Reagan foreign policy. But I think this collapse has more to do with the Reagan coalition itself, and how the events of the 1970s caused this coalition to shift to the Republican Party in the 1980s.
I've been going through the news reports, pundit analysis, and the blogs, trying to figure out what really happened to result in Hillary Clinton's upset win in New Hampshire? It is like one moment, everyone is writing off Hillary Clinton's campaign, and now the next moment, everyone is shaking their heads, asking what happened? I think there are a number of factors to consider, each factor interconnecting with each other.
THURMONT, Md. — The Army is struggling to find volunteers for an unpopular war, despite recruiting bonuses of up to $20,000 and pay increases for enlistees that have beaten inflation by 21 percent since 2000.
It met its numeric goal of 80,000 recruits last year, but it paid a price in terms of declining numbers of high school graduates and lower scores on skills and physical tests. The percentage of minimally qualified Army recruits, known as Category IVs, has quadrupled since 2002, and the percentage that required special health or moral waivers has risen sharply as well.
And many recruiting problems preceded the Iraq war.
It appears that the Army is struggling to find volunteers, even after lowering their standards and increasing bonuses and incentives to new recruits. And now the Army is claiming that the recruiting problems have preceded the Iraq war. So the Army's recruiting problems are not to be blamed on the Iraq war. Am I living in the Twilight Zone here? For more, continue below the fold.
The Washington Post has just published an extremely interesting poll, reporting that "Americans are deeply pessimistic and eager for a change in direction from the agenda and priorities of President Bush...." According to the Washington Post:
Concern about the economy, the war in Iraq and growing dissatisfaction with the political environment in Washington all contribute to the lowest public assessment of the direction of the country in more than a decade. Just 24 percent think the nation is on the right track, and three-quarters said they want the next president to chart a course that is different than that pursued by Bush.
Overwhelmingly, Democrats want a new direction, but so do three-quarters of independents and even half of Republicans. Sixty percent of all Americans said they feel strongly that such a change is needed after two terms of the Bush presidency.
This is an incredible poll, since it shows not only the dissatisfaction that Americans have with the failed Bush presidency, but serious problems that the GOP has in convincing voters to elect a Republican president in 2008. For more, continue below the fold
For Halloween, I thought I'd shift your attention away from the monsters, werewolves, and blood-sucking vampires that exist in the haunted mansion that exists on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, for something that is just a little more fun. My five-year-old niece has a stuffed, black, kitten, who wears a witches' hat, that she loves for Halloween. She has named this kitten Maria. When I babysit her, we end up creating fun little stories about Maria, or any of the other hundred stuffed animals she has. Since Maria is a Halloween decoration, I came up with an wonderful little Halloween story titled Maria and the Ghost Mice. My niece loved the story. And so, I'll share it with you for a Happy Halloween.
I know that Republican National Committee chairman Mel Martinez's resignation has already beenpostedhere. But as I was reading the New York Times story, the question that has been going through my mind is why did Martinez step down? The Times article states that Martinez resigned "to spend more time focusing on his Florida constituents." There is more to this story here. I think Martinez resigned because there was no way he, or anyone else, could perform the chairman's job as this country is being wreaked by President Bush's disasters after disasters. In other words, Mel Martinez may have told President Bush, and the GOP, to "take this job and shove it."
I will admit that I am having deep reservations about writing this post, let alone publishing it on both my own blog Oh Well, and on The Daily Kos. It usually is good advice not to burn your bridges with a former employer, but this is also a situation to write about politics, and my own impressions of working on the front lines in the ongoing political battle between liberal and conservative ideology. This is a situation where I can see contradictions and criticism within the canvassing program, and perhaps within the Democratic and progressive political establishment. This is a post describing my first, and last, day of working as a canvasser.
I seriously wonder if Americans are either gullible, or ignorant. I found this story on McClatchy:
WASHINGTON —An important point in Alan Greenspan's much-hyped memoir has gone largely unnoticed: He acknowledges that global economic forces, more than Federal Reserve policy, kept inflation low and manageable for two decades.
By global forces he means free trade, the rise of emerging, cheap-labor economies led by China and India and the benefits from information technology and the Internet.
He warns that these forces — "globalization," in shorthand — are weakening as they mature. He fears that could mean a gradual return to persistent 1970s-style inflation over the next 20 years or so. And he worries that could cripple a U.S. economy that's already facing strains from the graying of the population over the same period.
So now Greenspan is predicting a 1970s inflation to cripple the U.S. Is Greenspan trying to con the American people with this prediction? There is more below the fold.
WASHINGTON - President Bush will tell the nation Thursday evening he plans to reduce the American troop presence in Iraq by as many as 30,000 by next summer, but will condition those and further cuts on continued progress, The Associated Press has learned.
In a prime-time television address Thursday at 9 p.m. ET, Bush will endorse the recommendations of his top general and top diplomat in Iraq, following their appearance at two days of hearings in Congress, administration officials said. The White House plans to issue a written status report on the "surge" on Friday, they said.
So President Bush is going on prime time, tomorrow, to make a big speech about how he will adopt General David H. Petraeus' recommendation of withdrawing 30,000 troops from Iraq. Is this a major Bush White House concession, or another PR-scam to keep the war going? Continue below the fold.
I've been going through the blog posts and the news reports on the Larry Craig scandal, and it struck me that both Senator Larry Craig and the GOP are locked into their own little battle here--a battle to see which can cover their own political asses before the 2008 elections. What is so ironic is that the CYA of Senator Craig is completely incompatible with the CYA of the Republican Party.
Get your latex gloves on--this might not be too pretty....
WASHINGTON, Aug 30 (Reuters) - The Bush administration will conduct a meeting this fall to hear Americans' advice on how to stem a wave of unsafe imports from China and other countries, officials said on Thursday.
The all-day meeting on Oct. 1 at the Agriculture Department in Washington is designed to gather suggestions about how the government and companies can better ensure the safety of imported food and other products.
U.S. consumers have been jarred in recent months by a spate of recalls of unsafe children's toys, chemical-laced toothpaste, and dangerous additives in pet food and seafood.
The Bush administration is asking the American public for advice on how to stop the influx of unsafe products coming into the country. Excuse me while I bang my head against the computer monitor. There is more below the fold.
Okay, this is going to be a short posting, but it is just so absurd and crazy that it is somewhat humorous. I found this post through Shakesville and Blue Gal. The original source story is YoursDaily.com. Can you spot the absurdity of this story:
In Alabama, you can sell guns on any street corner but you can't sell sex toys.
That's right. Alabama is a vibrator-free state!
So them good ole boys in Alabama can shoot their guns off, but when it comes to the point where an Alabama woman wants to have a little fun with her vibrator--That's a NO! NO!
What is more, the U.S. Supreme Court has taken an interest in the banning of vibrator sales in Alabama. There is more below the fold.
This is just totally wacked-out! Here is Rep. Thelma Drake (R-VA) freaking out over being filmed by the audience, just before she makes a speech at a public event. I found this through Americablog. Just watch it. From YouTube:
Are you filming me? You bet we're filming you! There is more below the fold.
