"In a blustery and vigorous first debate, gubernatorial candidates Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown dueled Tuesday over their differing solutions to California's dire problems, with Whitman slighting Brown as a tool of labor unions and Brown excoriating her as a billionaire running for office to benefit the rich."
""""Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are trapping heat in the Earth's atmosphere, warming temperatures on land and in the oceans, according to scientific studies. California has begun to feel the effects, with rising sea levels, the disruption of habitats for plants and animals, and diminishing mountain snowpacks that are critical to the state's water supply.
California's global warming law, also known as AB 32, is the most sweeping in the nation, requiring greenhouse gas pollution to be slashed to 1990 levels by the end of the decade, and setting a goal of an 80% reduction by mid-century.
Over time, the law would affect nearly every industry and household in the state, with regulations to cut the carbon intensity of gasoline, require auto companies to build more fuel-efficient cars, force electrical utilities to switch to solar and wind energy, make buildings and appliances more energy-efficient and encourage denser development with access to public transportation.
""""What to do when you're Sharron Angle, one of the most far-right Senate candidates in the country — someone who wants to deny abortions to 13-year-old girls raped by their fathers; calls the BP victims' compensation fund a "slush fund," floats the possibility of armed rebellion; wants to abolish the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, the EPA, and the IRS; and even disagrees with the legal status of alcohol — and your opponent, Harry Reid, insists on informing people about your extremist views? You stand up for yourself and defend your positions, and let the battle of ideas take its course! Or, you could just try to attract some of the sympathy that people feel for bullied and battered women.""""
""""The Democrats keep the focus on O’Donnell, somehow hoping that, thus primed, voters across America will come to the conclusion that Republicans are unfit to govern, and reject them on November 2. It’s a very foolish strategy. Tea Party candidates promoted by Sarah Palin are doing well in some states. Not O’Donnell. It’s sadly clear that Delaware’s voters are now concluding that O’Donnell’s true vocation is on Bill Maher’s Show or as a follow-on from Bristol Palin’s appearance on Dancing with the Stars. She lags behind her Democratic opponent by 15 points in the race for Joe Biden’s former senate seat.
But for Democrats to fixate on O’Donnell is like focusing on the “threat” of Little Red Riding Hood instead of taking a close look at the true threat lurking in the woods. This is a general popular fury with incumbent politicians, most particularly Democrats, since they control both houses of Congress, with a Democrat in the Oval Office. As a roadside sign I just saw in southern Oregon put it, put it, “Remember to throw out the trash. Vote on November 2.”
witchiepoo
It’s becoming clear that by the end of Election Day Democrats could be reliving the terrible double punch they endured back in 1994 after two years of Bill Clinton: the loss of not only the House but the Senate. The House is surely going Republican. Democrats can count on 192 certain seats in the next Congress, Republicans 205, with what the Real Clear Politics (RCP) site - crunching the numbers - says are 38 seats “too close to call”. You can bet that this year more of these will tend to fall the Republican side of the line.
In the Senate Democrats, according to RCP, can count on 48 seats, Republican 46 with 6 too close to call. Of these six at least four could go to Republicans, starting with Tea Party star Sharron Angle in Nevada and heading east through Colorado, Illinois to West Virginia. And in this year of Throw Out the Trash, Democrats can’t count on “safe seats” to be truly safe.""""
"It sounds good, and it's a warm, bleeding heart message to say we're not gonna deny anyone with a preexisting condition," Huckabee explained at the Value Voters Summit today. "Look, I think that sounds terrific, but I want to ask you somethin' from a common sense perspective. Suppose we applied that principle [to] our property insurance, like for our houses, or our vehicles. And you, say Jed can call your insurance agent and say, "I'd like to buy some insurance for my house." He'd say, "Tell me about your house." "Well sir, it burned down yesterday--it ain't even there, 'cept a few 2 by 4s--but I'd like to insure it today anyhoo." And he'll say, "I'm sorry, Jed, but we can't insure it after it's already burnt down." If you had a wrecked car, it'd be the same. They wouldn't insure it. Well, it's just the same for humans, as it is for ruined houses and wrecked cars. You don't get no pre-existing conditions. When you're already sick, you're damaged goods, burnt down, wrecked, so to speak. No businessman in their right mind would lay a bet on a diseased, old dying person anymore than they would on a burnt-down house or piece of junk car. That's the long and short of it. Bad business. Next question, folks, and then let's say a prayer for our men and women in uniform."""
""""On Tuesday Italian police seized Mafia-linked assets worth an unprecedented €1.5 billion from a Sicilian businessman known as the ‘Lord of the Winds’.
The seizure of holdings from 43 mainly renewable energy companies included land, sports cars and bank accounts. It signifies a shift in operations for Italy’s mafia; from the illegal dumping of toxic waste to the laundering of money through solar and wind power projects. According to members of the Italian press, this transition has been going on for years.""""
"""""Tax-cut advocates used to pretend that they were mainly concerned about helping typical American families. Even tax breaks for the rich were justified in terms of trickle-down economics, the claim that lower taxes at the top would make the economy stronger for everyone.
These days, however, tax-cutters are hardly even trying to make the trickle-down case. Yes, Republicans are pushing the line that raising taxes at the top would hurt small businesses, but their hearts don’t really seem in it. Instead, it has become common to hear vehement denials that people making $400,000 or $500,000 a year are rich. I mean, look at the expenses of people in that income class — the property taxes they have to pay on their expensive houses, the cost of sending their kids to elite private schools, and so on. Why, they can barely make ends meet.
And among the undeniably rich, a belligerent sense of entitlement has taken hold: it’s their money, and they have the right to keep it. “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society,” said Oliver Wendell Holmes — but that was a long time ago.
The spectacle of high-income Americans, the world’s luckiest people, wallowing in self-pity and self-righteousness would be funny, except for one thing: they may well get their way. Never mind the $700 billion price tag for extending the high-end tax breaks: virtually all Republicans and some Democrats are rushing to the aid of the oppressed affluent.""""""
""""News articles and television and radio reports have expressed shock that Meg Whitman has now broken the record for spending personal money toward getting elected: As of last week, says the Los Angeles Times, the Republican California gubernatorial candidate spent $119 million of her own bucks to get voters to like her enough that they will send her to Sacramento. Of course, for that kind of money, Whitman could buy Sacramento and have some change left over to purchase San Diego as a summer home.
"""""Nur einen Sommer gonnt, ihr Gewaltigen !
Und einen Herbst zu reifem Gesange mir,
Dass williger mein Herz, vom siissen
Spiele gesattigt, dann mir sterbe.
Die Seele, der im Leben ihr gottlich Recht
Nicht ward, sie ruht auch drunten im Orkus nicht; Doch ist mir einst das Heil’ge, das am Herzen mir liegt, das Gedicht gelungen.
Willkommen dann, 0 Stille der Schattenwelt!
Zufrieden bin ich, wenn auch mein Saitenspiel Mich nicht hinabgeleitet; einmal
Lebt’ ich wie Gotter, und mehr bedarfs nicht.""""
""The fact is, the American story is not just the story of limited governments; it is the story of limited but energetic governments that used aggressive federal power to promote growth and social mobility. George Washington used industrial policy, trade policy and federal research dollars to build a manufacturing economy alongside the agricultural one. The Whig Party used federal dollars to promote a development project called the American System.Brooks' quasi-Humean moderate politics (that's Hume, as in David, not Brit) will not likely please Teabaggers (or the usual pop-gonzo obsessed DINO), but ...whatevah.
Abraham Lincoln supported state-sponsored banks to encourage development, lavish infrastructure projects, increased spending on public education. Franklin Roosevelt provided basic security so people were freer to move and dare. The Republican sponsors of welfare reform increased regulations and government spending — demanding work in exchange for dollars.
Throughout American history, in other words, there have been leaders who regarded government like fire — a useful tool when used judiciously and a dangerous menace when it gets out of control. They didn’t build their political philosophy on whether government was big or not. Government is a means, not an end. They built their philosophy on making America virtuous, dynamic and great. They supported government action when it furthered those ends and opposed it when it didn’t. """""
""""Public allegations of kickbacks involving Judge Porteous first surfaced 7 1/2 years ago, as part of the Wrinkled Robe probe of corruption at the Jefferson Parish state courthouse. Jeff Duhon, former employee of then-bail bondsman Louis Marcotte III, detailed how he routinely took Judge Porteous' vehicles to be repaired on Mr. Marcotte's tab when the judge served in state court prior to his 1994 federal appointment. Mr. Duhon said he also personally installed a fence in Judge Porteous' home.
J'accuse!
A mountain of evidence, and guilty pleas from several people involved, have since shown how Judge Porteous further prostituted his office.
For years, he took kickbacks from Mr. Marcotte while setting favorable bonds for his company. The judge also created a scheme -- there's no better word for it -- to provide two lawyer friends with court appointments worth thousands of dollars. In turn, those lawyers funneled some of that cash back to Judge Porteous.
And while on the federal bench, Judge Porteous lied repeatedly under oath, including during his 2001 personal bankruptcy filing. """""
""""Whether anguishing over American military interventions abroad or delivering jabs at Wall Street tycoons, this Twain is strikingly contemporary. Though the autobiography also contains its share of homespun tales, some of its observations about American life are so acerbic — at one point Twain refers to American soldiers as “uniformed assassins” — that his heirs and editors, as well as the writer himself, feared they would damage his reputation if not withheld.UC-Co has already released some teasers: thisismarktwain.com. Nothing like prospectin' in the.....big Esmeralda district--. bumf**kegypt as they used to say.
“From the first, second, third and fourth editions all sound and sane expressions of opinion must be left out,” Twain instructed them in 1906. “There may be a market for that kind of wares a century from now. There is no hurry. Wait and see.”
Twain’s decree will be put to the test when the University of California Press publishes the first of three volumes of the 500,000-word “Autobiography of Mark Twain” in November. Twain dictated most of it to a stenographer in the four years before his death at 74 on April 21, 1910. He argued that speaking his recollections and opinions, rather than writing them down, allowed him to adopt a more natural, colloquial and frank tone, and Twain scholars who have seen the manuscript agree. """""
""""Consider what the rest of us see in the "Young Guns," who are neither young nor noticeably armed. Eric Cantor, VA-7 (R), has limited social skills and no charisma; his position as majority leader-in-waiting is built on the money he can raise as the only Jewish Republican in the Solar System. Kevin McCarthy, CA-22 (R), is a backslapper and small-talker from a safe district, who can work a room full of Gingrich cronies as a stand-in for the slow-tongued Cantor. McCarthy is useless as muscle, as an enforcer, because, says an observer, "That would put him in a position [where] he was unpopular."
Paul Ryan, WI-6 (R), is the babyface of the lot, no money, but lots of braininess about taxes and spending. Ryan loves to spew numbers in Cantor's earshot, which makes Cantor feel smart and less bad about the fact that he voted for TARP twice and every other bank bail-out he could find in Nancy Pelosi's kitchen. Ryan also has the problem of two "yes" votes to TARP. Oddly, McCarthy, thinking of his options, rejected TARP twice, but he is too polite to bring it up to his amigos, the "young conservatives" Eric and Paul.""""
""""During the first 15 seconds the camera pans the books in the book cases in the room, (Hitchen's study, perhaps), followed by the credits, and photos of Hitchens, who is being treated for cancer at present, and looks very ill, from a happier time. We get the impression of a scholar who is both hip and wise, not to mention very well read, and long suffering. When he speaks, Hitchens' tone is hesitant, deeply emotional; he often looks down and fidgets before speaking.Chairman Hitchens at the controls.
Goldberg tells us Hitchens has deep knowledge of the 'Holocaust', and "the protean eternal nature of antisemitism". Eternal antisemitism. That's a big statement, a cynical statement. In a world where racism and greed have impoverished and debilitated broad swaths of humanity who have darker skin, who sit on resources other, better armed, races covet while they lack the basic necessities of life, water, for instance, we are to focus on man's inhumanity to man in the form of “eternal” bigotry against an ethno-religious group, largely white, well fed and successful, who have been given permission to drive out the indigenous inhabitants of their 'Promised Land' and unconditionally supported in the establishment of their homeland through violent, separatist, racist policies towards their neighbors.""""
.... .... ....
4. Moyses, wishing to secure for the future his authority over the nation, gave them a novel form of worship, opposed to all that practised by other men. Things sacred with us, with them have no sanctity, while they allow what with us is forbidden. In their holy place they have consecrated an image of the animal by whose guidance they found deliverance from their long and thirsty wanderings. They slay the ram, seemingly in derision of Hammon, and they sacrifice the ox, because the Egyptians worship it as Apis. They abstain from swines flesh, in consideration of what they suffered when they were infected by the leprosy to which this animal is liable. By their frequent fasts they still bear witness to the long hunger of former days, and the Jewish bread, made without leaven, is retained as a memorial of their hurried seizure of corn. We are told that the rest of the seventh day was adopted, because this day brought with it a termination of their toils; after a while the charm of indolence beguiled them into giving up the seventh year also to inaction. But others say that it is an observance in honour of Saturn, either from the primitive elements of their faith having been transmitted from the Ideai, who are said to have shared the flight of that God, and to have founded the race, or from the circumstance that of the seven stars which rule the destinies of men Saturn moves in the highest orbit and with the mightiest power, and that many of the heavenly bodies complete their revolutions and courses in multiples of seven.""""
""""To a degree, the nation Mencken claims to delight in as an "Eden of clowns" is a mischievous creation unified by his own powerful sense of the ridiculous. Throughout Prejudices, he drives the diverse "bosh mongers," spewers of buncombe and "geysers of pishposh" into the same corral through sheer brawny eloquence and fistic wit. Thus his menagerie of scoundrels brings together such strange bedfellows as "the Ku Klux Klan and all other clownish fraternal orders," Chambers of Commerce, Methodists, Chautauquans, prohibitionists, sex hygienists, Freudian "necromancers," the "snouting and preposterous Puritan," and the "fantoddish old suffragette." Indeed, his prose style is an assertion of masculine puissance (to use one of his favorite words); and it strikes one that what gives such galvanic force to his writing is not only his "unashamed taste for the bizarre and indelicate," but his outraged feeling that America is being emasculated by purveyors of genteel literature, wowsers, teetotalers, and "vassarized" women. "Here," he says, "is a land in which women rule and men are slaves. Train your women to get your slippers for you, and your ill fame will match Galileo's or Darwin's."
As a physical presence Mencken seems to have achieved what he describes as the male ideal: a figure whose "only touch of genuine color" is "the florid blob of the face." As an intellectual presence there's nothing blobby about him. He's a festive brawler, here to bust up the joint. In "The Cult of Hope" (Second Series) he calls the idea that criticism should be constructive a "messianic delusion"; on the contrary, its object is destruction. Mencken's flair for contumely and comic rancor are intoxicating, even to one who disagrees with him more than half of the time. To be sure, in the pages of Prejudices he's sometimes dull and stupid, as when he issues decrees on women's clothing and makeup or on the relations between the sexes; sometimes he's just dull, though unavoidably so, as when he lays into middle-brow writers lost to history; and sometimes he's brilliantly hard-hitting as when he takes on American journalism and other forms of timeserving. There are many reasons to read Prejudices, but for me one trumps them all: that combative, beautifully sprung, ingeniously funny style, as irresistible as a laughing baby.""""
"In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavat Geeta, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial; and I doubt if that philosophy is not to be referred to a previous state of existence, so remote is its sublimity from our conceptions. I lay down the book and go to my well for water, and lo! there I meet the servant of the Brahmin, priest of Brahma, and Vishnu and Indra, who still sits in his temple on the River Ganga reading the Vedas, or dwells at the root of a tree with his crust and water---jug. I meet his servant come to draw water for his master, and our buckets as it were grate together in the same well. The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges."bootay-call!
