Intellectual freedom is the only guarantee of a
scientific - democratic approach to politics, economic development, and
culture.
-Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov-
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
-Benjamin Franklin-
Mark Adams is [in no particular order] a Lawyer, Restauranteur, Husband, Father, Grandfather, Landlord, Singer, Guitarist, Political Scientist, Amateur Historian and Rhetorician with no sense of reverence for anything except the freedom to speak one's mind. To visit Mark's Family Law Website
Republicans never speak in specifics. It's always this pompous talk of grand, lofty, VAGUE "ideals" -- and it's pretty damn hard to argue with ideals. Give me something concrete, dumbass. Something that is true, by the way.
National Security Advisor Condolingus Rice has absolutely no business whatsoever being out on the campaign trail stumping for Bush. We are in the midst of two simultaneous wars, a greater threat to our security from terrorists (if you are to believe Dick Cheney's "scare tactics,") and with the election near the Homeland Security Department stated that the risk of an attack is indeed very high.
What the hell is she doing giving speeches to the Cleveland City Club on behalf of the Bush campaign. This is wholly unprecedented and completely inappropriate for her role as NSA.
And really folks, if we in Ohio take offense to the "Limey Assholes" writing us to sway our vote for Kerry, what makes you think that inviting the Austrian Governor of California will have any more effect?
A quote by "Uber Hawk" Paul Wolfowitz on how to tell we have won against terror courtesy of
Demagogue
"...victory is going to be measured by what doesn't happen as opposed to what does happen. When Americans can go to malls and shopping centers and not have to worry about being hit by terrorists, and we don't think that on any moment there might be a suicidal airplane attack, then we'll know that we've dealt with it." Wolfowitz on Van Susteran's Show
Kerry's quote, published originally in the New York Times:
"We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance."
Why does my brain hurt? Oh yeah, because the administration that said Kerry was usuing "shameless scare tactics", the administration that claimed it was Kerry who had a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the terrorist threat by equating it with "nuisance," is an administration well at odds with anything remotely reality based.
Teaching our children the keys to success and the rules of the road are as important as academics.
(PRWEB) October 20, 2004 -- While the presidential candidates debate the value of the No Child Left Behind Act our children are all being held back. The premise of No Child Left Behind is admirable but the practice is severely lacking. While the program is under funded and awkward in its adherhence problems it is also sucking up supplemental monies that provide life skills programs and creative material that necessary to a well rounded education.
There is a huge gap between getting a great education and having the life skills to use that education in real life. Academics are only part of the equation when we are speaking of the success of the next generation.
"We are teaching our children to learn, but we are not teaching them to think", says Jeanne Webster, a Certified Professional Life Skills coach and author of the award winning book "If You Could Be Anything, What Would You Be? A Teen's Guide to Mapping Out the Future.
If you don't know this already, you don't have kids or you are not involved enough in your children's school, or you actually buy this administration's sloganeering and believe in "Clear Skies," "Healthy Forests," "Compassionate Conservative." "Greeted with Flowers," "Manned Mars Missions," "Tinker-Bell," and the "Easter Bunny."
Our friends at Electoral-vote.com
have upgraded their servers and tweaked their methodology a bit,
providing for the historical 2:1 break for challengers by undecided
voters. This latest compiles 41 different polls and I have plugged the
results into my map with the size of the state weighted for number of
electoral votes available. There are no absolute ties with all this
data crunched, but many states are still within a whisker.
Note that in the 7 out of 16 "swing states" where Bush is up are all within
the margin of error -- statistical ties; and Kerry's leads in Michigan,
Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington are all outside
the margin of error, solidly in Kerry's corner.
Mind you that winning the "big three" swingers: Ohio, Pennsylvania and
Florida, looks pretty optimistic for the Kerry camp. A sweep would be
nice but only two out of three will do it. Pennsylvania looks solid
blue, however Ohio still is shaky but trending in the right way.
Florida is still Flori-DUH in my opinion until I'm proven wrong.
Stories of voter fraud still haunts the Sunshine State and are becoming
disturbingly commonplace here in the Buckeye State. (See previous post
about CrackHead
Chad for example.
ADENDUM: Mystery
Pollster has an excellent analysis of what the hell is up with Ohio
and why the various polls are remarkedly consistent (despite their
being "reported" as being all over the place).
If Bush thinks that Kerry talking about the possibility
of a draft and the probable disaster privatization of Social Security
might bring are "shameless scare tactics", What the hell is
Cheney doing when he talks about an impending nightmare because Kerry
won't be up to the task because Terrorists May Bomb U.S. Cities with "deadlier
weapons than have ever before been used."
If Kerry's comments qualify as scare tactics, maybe that
should tell Bush something about his policies: the remarks on Social
Security were based on Bush's own statement that given a second term,
he would "come out strong after [his] swearing in with fundamental tax
reform, tort reform, privatizing of Social Security." The notion of a
draft wasn't invented either; the Selective Service seems to be gearing
up to tap
into the medical community in case the medical corps needs more
people.
They said we are safer and the world is safer because of their
efforts. But they really don't want you to feel safer, not
enough to think anyway.
They decry "scare tactics" and use them on a grander scale than
Kerry could imagine.
They promise "Clear Skies" and rollback pollution curbs.
They promise "Compassion" while refusing to even look at minimum
wage and cut the benefits of veterans returning from their war.
They promised "Conservatism" as well and are the most fiscally
irresponsible administration in the history of the republic.
They said they would institute a more "humble" foreign policy
except if gas prices got too high in which case they would "jawbone"
the Saudis to get the prices back down.
And let's face it, the "No Child Left Behind" is underfunded and
actually sucks wind.
Lest we forget Bush, Inc.'s favorite wedge issue, the intolerant
gay bashing Hetero-only marriage amendment. But heavens, let's not talk
about a prominently gay campaign officer pushing the administration's
agenda against her own self interest.
UPDATE: Stupid typo pointed
out by DU corrected. Thanks for the Link.
Will this moron join the "Hanging Chad" and "Pregnant Chad" in the annals of election year fiascos?
Chad Staton arrested for allegedly filing more than 100 false voter registration forms in exchange for crack cocaine from a Toledo woman working on behalf of the NAACP’s voter registration drive
As a follow up to this morning's post, in which alert election officials knew that somebody must have been smoking crack to try and turn in voter registration cards for the likes of Dick Tracy, Mary Poppins, Michael Jordan, Jeffrey Dahmer. Janet Jackson and George Foreman, NewsMax, predictably, has pronounced that incident reflects the "fact" that the Democrats and NAACP have reached a new low.
Remember years ago when National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was a civil rights organization, before it devolved into one of the more hate-mongering branches of the Democrat establishment? Now NAACP has a hit a revolting new low, according to one of its accomplices.
Perspective people, please. This was one guy and about 100 phoney registrations that nobody was going to use to vote with anyway. Seriously, does he look like a poster-child for the NAACP? There are literally thousands of earnest volunteers working slavishly to get people registered on both sides of the aisle. And there's going to be the occasional asshole among them.
In a statement issued late yesterday, Gregory Moore, the national executive director [of the NAAPC], said the group was "shocked" by the allegations, welcomed the investigation, and hoped it didn't hurt the reputation of other "volunteers and canvassers who have worked tirelessly to enfranchise the disenfranchised throughout the year."
Crackhead Chad did not shred and/or destroy valid registrations as has happened to would-be democratic voters by the tens of thousands. This was an isolated incident. There are far more oganized and offical voter suppression efforts against the democrats going on. Just a sample from Kos's Voter Registration Fraud Clearinghouse:
We are pronouncing the end of the republic because a crackhead scammed the system, badly at that? Puh-Leeze. The Squealer notes that there was one name missing from all the registrations Chad made up, his own. But contrary to general belief, once Crackhead Chad get's out of prison, he can legally register to vote. In Ohio, once someone has paid their debt to society, they can vote again.
Meanwhile, WTOL in Toledo reports that the Lucas County Board of elections have thousands of registrations left to process (10,000 just showed up there and they have 4,000 with bad addresses or other mistakes.) Fraud may or may not be involved and they are shooting to get the 10,000 in their computers by the end of the week. The 4,000 goof-ups are being investigated.
If Bush thinks that Kerry talking about the possibility
of a draft and the probable disaster privatization of Social Security
might bring are 
Chad Staton arrested for allegedly filing more than 100 false voter registration forms in exchange for crack cocaine from a Toledo woman working on behalf of the NAACP’s voter registration drive 
