Sunday, August 16, 2009
Making America Great - Two voices at a time
Obama Pics Daily - More healthcare reform townhalls | Montana
This is what makes America great! Two disparate voices, side by side, moving forward toward a common objective. In the process it is all too easy to believe that we are polarized and separate - when in fact we are one nation, indivisible...
Tumble Into Peace - Geek Joke #2
Geek Joke #2
A SQL query goes into a bar, walks up to two tables and says, “Can I join you?”
Tumble Into Peace - Geek Joke #2
.... The bartender, overhearing the request, say, "Hey, this is a union place."
Saturday, August 15, 2009
What's The Role Of Race In Health Care Fracas? : NPR
What's The Role Of Race In Health Care Fracas? : NPR
BLOCK: And Professor Harris-Lacewell, when you hear, I want my America back, do you also hear a racial context to that?
Prof. HARRIS-LACEWELL: I certainly know that progressives and liberals often use very similar language during Bush's administration. As we saw the erosion of civil liberties, we often use the language of wanting our America back. I think it has something to do with how Americans project their own world views onto the broader American context.
I do worry about whether or not, at least for some of those opponents of health care reform, that part of what they're saying is a reflection of an anxiety about I want an America back where African-Americans, where Latinos, where women were truly second-class citizens rather than first class, equal member with a full right to govern.
I'm not saying that every opponent believes that. I worry about the ways in which there may be a resonance of that anxiety that emerges.
BLOCK: Tony Blankley, would you think…
Mr. BLANKLEY: Yeah. I mean that may well have been a true statement if you'd ask somebody in 1964, '65, or '67.
But in 2009, I don't know anybody who thinks that way. I mean this is out of the history books. This isn't out of life. A lot of my friends are very conservative. I have liberal friends too, a couple of communist friends as well. But nobody thinks that way. I mean this is trying to bring up an old problem that has largely disappeared.
I was listening to the above interview on my way home - out in the county, Philpot Kentucky. Philpot is really just a 4-corners community with a tiny post office and its own zip code. When we say we live out in the "county" we are really saying we live out in the country.
We've been out here in the county for more than 10 years. We moved down here from Michigan in 1995. My point is that we are now 'from around here'. From the heartland of America.
I can tell you Mr. Blankley that I do know people who "think that way". I know the devoted American's who daily question whether President Obama was really born in the United States of America. I know proud and arrogant Americans who "want their America" back - the way it was "in 1964, '65, or '67". I know patriotic Americans who state that they wish the President of the United States of America would fail. I know Americans who have mobbed together hoping to defeat health care reform so that they can celebrate a "win" over that <explicative deleted> and his bleeding heart liberal commie pinko socialist death-panel friends.
America - Where fear and ignorance trumps truth
Just before midnight, a "note" was posted on Sarah Palin's Facebook page titled, "Concerning the 'Death Panels.'" Predictably, the media latched onto it and reported her thoughts. However, there's a problem: there's no way in hell Sarah Palin wrote it.
How do I know this, you ask? Well, the answer to that question is perhaps best explained by a comment someone named Marvin Settle posted under Palin's note. He wrote:
Wow, and the public thought she wasn't educated enough to be President? That is some of the most well researched and thought out material I have ever read. Thanks Sarah.
Exactly! Thank you Marvin Settle. Thank you very much.
First: Go read the "note" was posted on Sarah Palin's Facebook page.
Second: Go to front page of Sarah Palin's Facebook and read some of the comments.
Third: Be afraid! Be very afraid! "Wow, and the public thought she wasn't educated enough to be President?" Sarah Palin, properly 'handled', will be the next mouth-piece of the Republican Party. AND because fear and ignorance trumps truth ... Sarah Palin is very likely to be the next George Bush President of the United States.
BE AFRAID! BE VERY AFRAID!
The Connoisseur
The Connoisseur (1962)I find the most interesting things at ...
If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger,There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Oh, the woes...
"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think
little of robbing; and from robbing he next comes to drinking and
Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination."
-- Thomas De Quincey (1785 - 1859)
New battery could change world, one house at a time
New battery could change world, one house at a time
The essence of Ceramatec's breakthrough is that high energy density (a lot of juice) can be achieved safely at normal temperatures and with solid components, not hot liquid.
Ceramatec says its new generation of battery would deliver a continuous flow of 5 kilowatts of electricity over four hours, with 3,650 daily discharge/recharge cycles over 10 years. With the batteries expected to sell in the neighborhood of $2,000, that translates to less than 3 cents per kilowatt hour over the battery's life. Conventional power from the grid typically costs in the neighborhood of 8 cents per kilowatt hour.
Re-read that last paragraph and let the information really sink in. Five kilowatts over four hours -- how much is that? Imagine your trash compactor, food processor, vacuum cleaner, stereo, sewing machine, one surface unit of an electric range and thirty-three 60-watt light bulbs all running nonstop for four hours each day before the house battery runs out. That's a pretty exciting place to live.
Garfield minus Garfield
[BBC] Phone that recognises tube stops
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Uncommon Sense: Nobody may give a damn about Ariel Sigler, but I do
Uncommon Sense: Nobody may give a damn about Ariel Sigler, but I do
Nobody may give a damn about Ariel Sigler, but I do
Ariel Sigler AmayaFor almost a week, I have been haunted by Cuban political prisoner Ariel Sigler Amaya's description of what the Castro dictatorship is doing to him as he sits in a Havana hospital suffering from a litany of health problems.
"This is obvious," said Sigler, "they are killing me little by little."
[More, much more...] Freedom isn't free! It is bought and paid for with the lives of those like Ariel Sigler Amaya. We need to be paying closer attention!
Perseids Like Celestial Bug Splatter
Perseids Like Celestial Bug Splatter
... on our cosmic windshield.
Unfortunately the link appears to have stopped working... but I loved the headline.
Posted via email from Pa^2 Patois
[Later: link seems to be working now.]
Practice being Independently Poor
For too long we have ascribed to the practice of being wealthy. We practiced diligently. We found new ways to increase our wealth. We used our wealth to measure our self worth. You might say we became adept at being wealthy.
Then in our wealth we became complacent. When we wanted or ...*gasp*... really needed something we simply snapped our plastic fingers and let our wealth 'take care of it'. The relative cost of the desired bauble or perceived "need" was hidden from us. Hidden in the automatic withdraws, electronic debits or far worse the "co-pay" which isolated us from any real cost of health care. It stopped being about real value and became instant gratification. It is time that we began practicing being Independently Poor.
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