Well, I'm Somewhat Cautiously Encouraged

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Monday August 22, 2011 · 7:32 PM PDT

2011/08/22 · 19:32

US President Barack Obama on Monday reached out to respected business figures Warren Buffett and Ford chief Alan Mulally as he frames a major new plan on jobs and the deficit.
Obama made the calls from his rented vacation farm house on the well-heeled resort island of Martha's Vineyard off Massachusetts, deputy White House press secretary Josh Earnest said.

The president often cites billionaire Berkshire Hathaway chief Buffett as an example of the well-off category of American who would not mind paying higher taxes to benefit the rest of the country.

"The president and Mr Buffett discussed the overall outlook on the economy and the reaction to the headwinds we've experienced over the last couple of months," Earnest said.

"They talked a little bit about some possible measures that would spur investment and increase economic growth. And they also talked about some measures that could address the long-term fiscal situation in this country."

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Monday August 22, 2011 · 8:23 AM PDT

2011/08/22 · 08:23

Bye Jack...

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Sunday August 21, 2011 · 10:28 AM PDT

2011/08/21 · 10:28

The more I understand hope, the more I realize that all along it deserved to be in the box with the plagues, sorrow, and mischief; that it serves the needs of those in power as surely as belief in a distant heaven; that hope is really nothing more than a secular way of keeping us in line.

Hope is, in fact, a curse, a bane. I say this not only because of the lovely Buddhist saying “Hope and fear chase each other’s tails,” not only because hope leads us away from the present, away from who and where we are right now and toward some imaginary future state. I say this because of what hope is.

More or less all of us yammer on more or less endlessly about hope. You wouldn’t believe-or maybe you would-how many magazine editors have asked me to write about the apocalypse, then enjoined me to leave readers with a sense of hope. But what, precisely, is hope? At a talk I gave last spring, someone asked me to define it. I turned the question back on the audience, and here’s the definition we all came up with: hope is a longing for a future condition over which you have no agency; it means you are essentially powerless.

[snip]

When we stop hoping for external assistance, when we stop hoping that the awful situation we’re in will somehow resolve itself, when we stop hoping the situation will somehow not get worse, then we are finally free-truly free-to honestly start working to resolve it. I would say that when hope dies, action begins.

– Beyond Hope, by Derrick Jensen

Poll

11 votes Show Results

Hopeless yet and ready to get to work?

11 votes Vote Now!

Hopeless yet and ready to get to work?

Yes

2 votes

0 votes

Almost

3 votes

Recovered from hope a long time ago

6 votes

Or...

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Sunday August 21, 2011 · 7:49 AM PDT

2011/08/21 · 07:49

The one thing, the main thing, the central point, that Nat Hentoff is obviously too obtuse to get, is that Barack Obama doing all things that George Bush and Dick Cheney deserve to be in prison for doing is a good thing, because he's a "Democrat".

If he was a Republican, it would be a bad thing.

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Thursday August 18, 2011 · 6:11 PM PDT

2011/08/18 · 18:11

How To Help Obama Win A Second Term

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Thursday August 18, 2011 · 12:38 PM PDT

2011/08/18 · 12:38

The biggest mistake I see many make when trying to sell Obama to the independents and liberals and progressives Obama has driven away over the past 2 1/2 years with his bipartisan coddling of and enabling of republicans is to call the prospects stupid, and tell them buying the product is the only way they can stop being stupid, apparently thinking the prospects will immediately reach for their wallets and say "where do I sign"?

Of course, that result only happens in salespeople's dreams - and is the reason 90 percent of people who go into sales never make any money at the job.

There is also a (real life) tried and true technique in sales and marketing that Obama supporters could try: the top sales producers in any industry constantly critique themselves and ask themselves "If I'm not getting the results I want to get, what am I doing that is producing the results I am getting?"

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Wednesday August 17, 2011 · 5:47 PM PDT

2011/08/17 · 17:47

Report: Apocalypse Actually Happened 3 Years Ago:

MENLO PARK, CA—Though the event went largely unremarked upon at the time, a report published Monday by the Kaiser Family Foundation has found that the apocalypse, or end of the world, occurred three years ago. "According to our data, the total collapse of all human civilization occurred on or around April 3, 2008," said foundation representative Jodie Palmenterri, citing numerous instances of environmental disaster, humanitarian catastrophe, and economic ruin as unambiguous signs that the world had ended. "Those who have worried for years that human culture was headed toward calamity can rest easy, because it already happened. We are living in a postapocalyptic world. This is it." Palmenterri went on to say that because the apocalypse does not resemble the eschatological predictions of any major religion, it's safe to assume the gods have all forsaken us.

Next year the undertaker will be elected?

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Tuesday August 16, 2011 · 6:28 PM PDT

2011/08/16 · 18:28

"The only bills that I've voted for, for the most part, since I've been in the Senate, were introduced by Republicans or by George Bush."
-- Senator Barack Obama @ 2min 18sec

This Feels Like A Punch In The Gut

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Monday August 15, 2011 · 8:07 PM PDT

2011/08/15 · 20:07

I'm at a loss for words over this. If this is true, what kind of insanity, sickness, or whatever it is, does it take to become someone who would do this?

Louisiana man admits beheading 7-year-old special needs son

Thibodaux Police have charged 30-year-old Jeremiah Wright with first degree murder over the killing of Jori Lirette, his seven-year-old special needs son.
Authorities have said that Wright has confessed to killing the wheelchair-confined boy.

“According to police, Wright decapitated Lirette, and dismembered his body over the home’s kitchen sink. Police say a passerby saw Lirette’s head on the sidewalk outside the family’s home Sunday afternoon.. It was near a garbage bag with the child’s dismembered body,” WWLTV reported.

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Monday August 15, 2011 · 8:59 AM PDT

2011/08/15 · 08:59

Woodstock, 42 Years Of Peace

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Monday August 15, 2011 · 6:42 AM PDT

2011/08/15 · 06:42

Today is the 42nd anniversary of the first day of Woodstock.

The next best thing to actually being there, here is a time machine.

"Woodstock: The Lost Performances"
1 hour and 8 minutes of Peace and Music.
A 1991 compilation of outtakes from the 120 or so miles of film taken at the festival
with
The Band, Joe Cocker, Canned Heat, Paul Butterfield, Arlo Guthrie, Blood Sweat & Tears, Country Joe McDonald, John Sebastian, Sly and the Family Stone, Tim Hardin, Melanie, Joan Baez, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Janis Joplin, and Richie Havens.

Bear with the awful 1 minute intro - the performances are great!

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Sunday August 14, 2011 · 5:19 PM PDT

2011/08/14 · 17:19

Poll

30 votes Show Results

Well?

30 votes Vote Now!

Well?

Yes

7 votes

Yes

2 votes

Of course

11 votes

What kind of a dumb question is that?

10 votes

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Well, I'm Somewhat Cautiously Encouraged

For Jack Layton

Intermission: This Land Of Broken Dreams

Or...

Intermission: Everybody But Me Is A Sheep

How To Help Obama Win A Second Term

Intermission: It's All Over & No One Noticed.

A Trip Down Memory Lane

This Feels Like A Punch In The Gut

Caption This

Woodstock, 42 Years Of Peace

Time To Come Out Of The Closet?