Brunch with Bush and Romney

From the latest get together of Mitt Romney and his life coach, George W. Bush.

National Voter Registration Day

It's September 25th, and that's National Voter Registration Day.

No chocolate bunnies, no day off from work, no mulled what's its piping in the kitchen. But you also don't have to get a shot, go to the dentist, or take the ACT's (Unless you do have any of that scheduled for today. Bad luck there.).

Anyhow. What you do get to do is guarantee you will be able to ensure you can enact your right to vote come November (or earlier if you have Early Voting in your area...Do you know if you can vote early where you are?).

And, if you want to help out, be sure to see if your friends and family are registered yet. Here's Obama's page to get people registered: Gotta Register.

With so many economic and budgetary issues on the board to be addressed. With so many rights at risk of being taken, or denied. With people like Ryan, Romney, McConnell, and Cantor walking around with bulging folders of bad ideas for this country. You really need to be sure you are registered, before time runs out.

And, come November, you need to vote.

Little Lord Romney

Spend some time and learn from Mitt Romney, Everyman.

Nerdy Fun With Photos: NASA snapshot

I want to think NASA planned this flight for all of us Trekkies out there.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Star Trek: The Voyage Home

Star Trek: Voyager

The idea of a Star Trek inspired flyover is not likely. But the idea does have a certain symmetry, taking us back to 1976.

Blogging and Tumblr

Hello!

I have for a few months now been on Tumblr, along with here on Blogger.

Can I share a secret?

I don't know what to do with the lot of it.

What is the difference for me? Is one meant for one type of narrative and the other for another narrative? Are they the same thing? They don't feel the same.

Now, at first, I thought Tumblr was more built for shorter and lighter pieces, quickly shot out. That, and reblogs. Lots and lots of reblogs. But I see some long writing pieces. And I see very weighty topics.

So, I am at a loss. And I am stumbling my way through. And at some point, I hop, I will have the logic of where and when things go on my sites. But I still struggle to deal with tags on posts. So let's not hope for too much.

But sometimes I will double post things...for some reason (I'm sure I had a good reason.), I hope people won't mind...I think this is going to get double post...

Must go now, or I might get on to Twitter...you don't want me to go there.

Public funding of...

A refrain constant among conservatives seems to be that, DAMMIT, we have to stop all that federal funding going to pay for abortions!

You point out that for years now that money for that has been barred by law, it's not good enough. They want to pass another law. It's like they're afraid we all might come to our senses and think better of how we handle this aspect of health care, and want to make it harder and harder to change.

But part of this argument for awhile now has been a repeated assault on support to Planned Parenthood (at @PPact on twitter). As one of the shrinking number of access points for women to receive abortions or information on abortion, conservatives just salivate at the idea of destroying this organization. An act that would simultaneously cut access to health care support to millions of American women and countless families, not that I've seen much care an interest in the real impact of this crusade on Women's Choice.

So, we keep seeing attempts to drive Planned Parenthood from one state then another. Red states have also worked diligently to block the organization from accessing state funds, and if that can, federal. And that effort continues throughout conservative hive mind.

Part of the issue that conservatives try to argue is that they are opposed to Planned Parenthood getting tax dollars as many oppose the organization (Now, polling shows that a clear majority of Americans support federal funding of PP, but facts and their liberal bias...). As Bill O'Reilly has further put it, the Catholic Church runs it's charitable work by donations, and so should Planned Parenthood. It is an interesting argument. Too bad it is false.

Catholics run their charities primarily on government grants. That is 2.9 billion dollars from us to the Catholic Church. And that's 62% of Catholic Charities revenue. That's a lot of money, from us, and that's most of the money they are using...coming from us. We fund the Catholic Church AND Planned Parenthood. (To abuse a meme: Checkmate, Catholics.)

Now, I have A LOT of issues with the Catholic Church. I also have issues with how various Catholic institutions talk about and treat certain minority groups in this country. Does this mean we should be asking for that money back now?

Really. Do we? It isn't an easy issue for me. There is good being done. Perhaps we should be sure there are rules on how OUR money is being used by the Catholic Church? Like how we tell Planned Parenthood how they can use OUR money?

There should be many question we ponder now, like the future of our financial relationships with churches.

And being sure that government at the local, state and federal level support Planned Parenthood. Start talking to your politicians.

The fried chicken still isn't worth it.

Well, we've all heard about the Chick-fil a troubles. How they've supported anti-gay efforts quite loudly and proudly.

And this lead to the likes of Pat Boone and the Palins eating there and promoting them.

And despite this this made some money.

So, to be sure everyone is up-to-date, there was word that Chick-fil a had since made changes to this policy and would no longer support these anti-gay groups and causes. And there was much rejoicing.

BUT WAIT!!! There's more.

CEO Dan Cathy, via Mike "I back every retrograde idea" Huckabee, that the company will "remain true to who we are and who we have been."

The purveyors of chicken, hate, and intolerance?

Way to walk in the steps of Christ, bro.

Not forgetting those in bondage.

It's 2012, an election year. It is a hard fought scrap we are in, between opposing governing philosophies, and the rhetorical pitch is only going to rise as we head into October and November.

But that is no excuse for us to be oblivious to problems that still sit on the desk, unconsidered and unanswered.

Guantanamo. GITMO.

It's slang. It's a meme. It's like a thing parent's lord over little children's heads to get them to go to bed.

But, we know well enough, it is real. And it is ours.

What use to be our little base in another nation, became our beachhead on a front in the Cold War, and now, it's America's Devil's Island. But we don't seem to care or be interested in what it says of us, or what it makes us. 10 years ago most of us decided to hit snooze on addressing this. And we've continued to just ignore it, waiting for it to just be normalized (like so many shifts in the last decade).

Yes, I'm sure (More of an open legal process would help we say "know.") their are bad people that are being detained there. There are also people who seem to be innocent, or who's culpability seems slight. As a just society this should weigh on us. More than that, it should spur us to act to right things for those wrongly held (Some for around a decade!) and to be sure those that have engaged in criminal or war acts see proper justice.

But worse than the fact people are sitting in limbo for years on now, some are not going to make it to having their grievances fully answered.

Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif was cleared for release in 2009, by a task force set up by the Obama administration. But three years on, he was still waiting. That was on top of the seven years he had already been held before this, coming to nearly a third of his life. But he won't know freedom as he was found dead in his cell this month.

The Justice Department had fought release for years for Latif and others. Then it is proving hard to find countries willing to take even those deemed innocent. The result indefinite detention for the guilty and innocent.

Beyond trying to lay blame on a party, a president, or nation...What do we do with this policy? What do we do now? How do we make things right for those held wrongly? How do we right what accepting these detentions all these years has done to us?

YES, it is an election year. We have an economy to bolster. We have nutters who want to get their hands on our military, and on women's uteri. We have big issues to address and fight over.

But there are also people now sitting for up to a decade in cells, waiting for us to give a damn. At some point we have to get around to giving a damn.

Portents from Roosevelt.

I guess none of us should be surprised that we can go back three quarters of a century and find a Republican Party all too familiar.

From the words of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt:

On the promises of Republicans.

Let Me Warn You.

"Let me warn you, and let me warn the nation, against the smooth evasion that says 'Of course we believe these things. We believe in social security. We believe in work for the unemployed. We believe in saving homes. Cross our hearts and hope to die.'  

 'We believe in all these things. But we do not like the way that the present administration is doing them. Just turn them over to us. We will do all of them, we will do more of them, we will do them better and, most important of all, the doing of them will not cost anybody anything'"

Also, on those entrenched interests at work on government and society.

... 

For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up.  

 We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. 
  

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. 

...

Hmm, Hmm, Hmm, Hmm...oh, doesn't work if you can't hear me hum.

The I Expect You To Die blog pointed to this video. And it does prove how fun the James Bond theme is. No words. But the beat turns a walk down the stairs to breakfast into the start of a globe-hopping adventure.



Yup. I will be looping this while I work out tomorrow...maybe it's more of the park walk tune...We'll see.

David Gregory is The Man With No Good Questions

Ah, first, so you know, I measure the time of extended breaks from blogging in the number of times my laptop crashes thanks to opening and keeping page after page of topic I want to cover in my browser. I had promised myself, I wouldn't let more than one crash pass without getting. Didn't work out that way.


Second, time has passed, and Mitt Romney hasn't gotten any fresher as a candidate.


And now, he's ready for Meet the Press. I'm sure it will be a titanic battle of wills...as David Gregory's handlers struggle to come up with the most pleasing questions and the ones most useful to Mitt Romney.

Back to the first point.