Election 2008--CLOSED

[CellarDweller115]

This is fun.
Check the windows.
(It would be even funnier if it weren't so scary.)

http://www.palinaspresident.US/

This has been out for a while, but they keep changing and adding stuff to it.  lmao!

There is stuff all over the office to click on, and some things you have to click on a number of times, because the responses change.

[brokebacktom]

Hi all.

Obama's Labor Sec. may be Mary Beth Maxwell. She is openly gay. WOW!!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/02/mary-beth-maxwell-labor-s_n_147942.html

[brokebacktom]

Education to high for normal Americans. I say: "no crap".

Over all, the report found, published college tuition and fees increased 439 percent from 1982 to 2007, adjusted for inflation, while median family income rose 147 percent. Student borrowing has more than doubled in the last decade, and students from lower-income families, on average, get smaller grants from the colleges they attend than students from more affluent families.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/education/03college.html?_r=1&ref=education

[Rosewood]

This is today's NY Times Editorial Board commentary.
Worth a look.
I like Eric Holder.
I too, hope he will not let us down on Constitutional issues.
Or any other issues, for that matter.

***************************************************************************************************

Published: December 2, 2008
If he is confirmed by the Senate as attorney general, Eric Holder, President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for the job, will inherit a Justice Department that has been mired in scandal and that has seriously lost its way in critical areas. Under President Bush, the department has been used to defend the indefensible, like indefinite detention and torture of prisoners, and to undermine rather than protect Americans’ cherished rights. Mr. Holder could be an exemplary choice to face this daunting agenda, but he must answer serious questions before the Senate votes on his confirmation.

Mr. Holder, who would be the first African-American attorney general, has a particularly good record of public service for this job. He has been a United States attorney for the District of Columbia, a prosecutor in the Justice Department’s public integrity section and a deputy attorney general under President Bill Clinton.

He has been outspoken on the most critical issue facing the department: restoring the rule of law. In a speech in June, he described the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism policies as “excessive and unlawful.” And he has called for closing the prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

But senators should ask Mr. Holder to square those views with comments he made after the Sept. 11 attacks when he defended the Bush administration’s prisoner policies by declaring that “you can think of these people as combatants and we are in the middle of a war.”

Americans need to know that Mr. Holder does not believe that detainees can be held indefinitely without being brought before a judge — and that he would stand up for the Constitution when times are tough.

There are other aspects of Mr. Holder’s record that are of concern, starting with his role in Mr. Clinton’s pardon of Marc Rich, a billionaire financier who had fled the country rather than face federal tax-evasion charges whose ex-wife, Denise Rich, had contributed heavily to the Clinton presidential library and the Democratic Party.

The Senate needs to probe that serious lapse in judgment closely to seek assurances that Mr. Holder will be unyielding about keeping political influence out of the Justice Department, which was shamefully politicized under Alberto Gonzales.

In addition to signing off on torture memos and depriving detainees of basic rights, the Bush Justice Department adopted legal positions that greatly expanded executive power. These policies must be quickly undone. The next attorney general also will have to get to the bottom of the department’s disgraceful record of politicized hiring and firing. The attorney general will need to ensure that the investigation of the firings of United States attorneys for what appear to be partisan reasons is thorough and credible, and that witnesses who have been defying subpoenas, including Karl Rove and Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, testify under oath.

There already are people — mainly Republicans — who say investigating these matters would be divisive. But the department’s integrity cannot be restored until the truth comes out and any wrongdoers are punished.

Many parts of the Justice Department must be pointed in a new direction. In the Bush years, the voting rights section worked against voting rights. The civil rights division too often sat idly by, or supported the wrong side, when rights were infringed. The antitrust division all but abandoned its responsibility to protect the public from the harm of monopoly power.

The attorney general is the nation’s top law enforcement official. The Senate must make sure that Mr. Holder is committed to the right kind of change in that job.

[BayCityJohn]

Out For Equality
The LGBT community commemoration of
Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s Inauguration
Tuesday, January 20
7PM – Midnight
Mayflower Hotel
1127 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C.

Get tickets at:
www.boxofficetickets.com/outforequality

Featuring entertainment and appearances by:



Melissa Etheridge
 

Cyndi Lauper
 

Rufus Wainwright
 

Thelma Houston
 

and others to be announced

Open bar and cocktail buffet
Tickets are $350 per person before December 16 and $375 thereafter
Attire: Festive or Formal   

[fritzkep]

A little beyond my price range, John! 

[BayCityJohn]

A little beyond my price range, John! 

Christmas is coming. Maybe someone will get you a ticket as a gift. 

[BayCityJohn]

Prop 8: The Musical

Since Proposition 8 passed in California, much of Hollywood has been up in arms. Now, they are singing and dancing, too, in a new Web video called "Prop 8: The Musical."

The video was posted Wednesday on FunnyOrDie.com, the video site co-founded by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay. The site has found a niche in getting professional talent to quickly create topical comedy videos.

"Prop 8: The Musical" may be a 3-minute Internet video, but it has a blockbuster cast — including Jack Black (who plays Jesus), Neil Patrick Harris, John C. Reilly, Andy Richter, Maya Rudolph, Margaret Cho, Rashida Jones and others.

Though Jesus doesn't bring the two sides together, Harris has better luck. He argues gay marriage could save the economy: "Every time a gay or lesbian finds love at the parade, there's money to be made."

The video was conceived and written by Marc Shaiman, the Tony Award-winning composer of "Hairspray" and "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut." McKay, who had previously collaborated with Shaiman on the song-and-dance routine Ferrell, Black and Reilly did at the Oscars earlier this year, sent him an e-mail floating the idea of a video.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/12/03/entertainment/e162232S44.DTL&tsp=1


http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/c0cf508ff8/prop-8-the-musical-starring-jack-black-john-c-reilly-and-many-more-from-fod-team-jack-black-craig-robinson-john-c-reilly-and-rashida-jones

[Sandy]

Although I would normally post this in "What good book (new or old) have you read lately?" I think it will appeal to those who have been discussing and bemoaning the economic/financial crisis on this thread (i.e., go where the action is).

I just finished Paul Krugman's "The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008." It's a rewrite of an earlier book, that takes us up through October of this year. It's about the clearest explanation I've seen to date of what the components of the crisis are, how we got in this mess and what we might need to do to get out of it. And when I say "we," I mean governments and those who are in a position to influence macroeconomic policy.

Much of the crisis can be pinned to problems with what is called the shadow banking system, in which so much credit was invested but which was not regulated in the way the standard banking system is (think subprime mortgages). Collapse of various instruments and means of channeling investments in the shadow banking system has had the effect of throwing those who used it to borrow (i) out of business or (ii) on to the mercy of the standard banking system and competing with those who use it. That has made capital more scarce, driven interest rates up, made lenders much more wary and choked up the flow of credit. Krugman offers some solutions to this set of problems.

Another thread in the book is the problem with global currency crises, particularly in currency speculation. Krugman has less to say about this, but at least he isolates it as a problem.

It doesn't offer advice for the plight of the individual, apart from offering an understanding of what the hell is going on; to my way of thinking, that is a large measure of solace. And if it can have a calming effect of folks who might otherwise have severe financial malaise, then that can contribute in its own way to the return of confidence in the economy.

The advice he offers is pragmatic and not ideological, which is to take steps to get credit flowing and money spent first, then worry about regulatory schemes after the economy grows out of recession.

Some of us may wonder where (and when) it will all end. Governments have the ability to step in and get credit flowing and money spent. Their measures are backed by those governments; in the case of democracies, that ultimately means those measures are backed by the taxpayers and citizens (just as, for example, FDIC insurance currently is). So unless you believe it is a viable possibility that the U.S. government, economy and civilization will collapse, you have reason (and precedent) to believe that we will through the current mess.

[jack]

and if you believe collapse IS inevitable?

*note, i did not say at this particular point in time, but inevitably.

[ChrisW]

Sandy - Do you think Obama and/or his team have read this book?

[brokebacktom]

Mn Senate race is a sad state of affair. We have 2,300 ballots in question, 20,000 thrown out due to not filling the Absentee ballots correct. Now we have 133 missing form the original Election night count. WE need an Indepedant Country, like Sweden, or something like the UN to oversee our elections from now on. This race will go to the courts I feel.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/04/franken-ballots-missing-i_n_148346.html

[KittyHawk]

I just saw that Franken is currently ahead by 22 votes with 138,000 still to be counted. I'd love to see him in the Senate, especially since the Dem. in Georgia lost. Read more about it at www.alfranken.com.

[WhenPigsFly]

I like Eric Holder.
I too, hope he will not let us down on Constitutional issues.
Or any other issues, for that matter.

Based on the majority of the stories I've seen about Holder, I'm thinking his confirmation hearing is going to be overloaded with questions from the Republicans about his involvement in the Marc Rich pardon.  NOT that they believe they can derail his nomination, but won't they have fun bashing Clinton (on the record) again?   

[Sandy]

and if you believe collapse IS inevitable?

*note, i did not say at this particular point in time, but inevitably.

If....

Then you are an old-time Marxist who believes that capitaliism must eventually fade away. But wait: it is Marxism that has faded away as viable economic theory/practice.

If....

Then you have a view of human beings and their interactions that is at radical variance with how they have behaved economically for the past 700 years.

If....

You read the book, we'll be in a better position to discuss whether your question is in fact an interesting one to ask (no rush).