Take the Tsunami Challenge
I have not blogged about the Tsunami until now because I have been simply too mortified. As of this posting the death toll is estimated to be over 125,000 and climbing. While searching for someplace to donate I noticed that TAS over at Loaded Mouth had issued a challenge:
Let’s make it official: I’m challenging bloggers to raise $5000 for the Tsunami relief efforts by pledging money and offering some quirky gift or service to their readers to get them to match it.
Perfect! I just donated $250 to Oxfam America’s Asia Earthquake Fund. The first person to send me an email confirmation of a match to this donation (to the charity of your choice - see TAS’s link above) will receive a free one year subscription to Utne Magazine. Any takers?
Challenge Progress
Donations:
- Ol’Froth, “I can’t afford $250, but my $35 donation is on the way! Every little bit helps.”
Flying Blind
by Thomas Burns
Republished with the permission of Thomas Burns.
New Year Resolutions
Every new year we go through this exercise of reviewing the year that was and resolving to do good and/or better things in the one to come. This year there could not be a more important exercise for America’s Left. As Woodrow Wilson once said, “those that forget history are bound to repeat it.”
This election year saw an incredible spike in individual participation in the political process that was particularly evident on the left. Traditional establishment Liberals working side-by-side with Progressives of all flavors with the common goal of unseating George W. Bush. Having participated in this process myself, also for the first time, I have to say it was both exciting and frustrating.
On the one hand, it was a thrill working beside all different kinds of people, each equally motivated and anxious to elect John Kerry as the next President. On the other hand, I can’t tell you how many times I left an organizing meeting, volunteer training session, rally or whatever thinking “this thing is held together by bubble gum and duct tape.” It was evident to anyone who paid attention (and by the level of noise at some of these meetings many people were) that the Democratic election machine is ad hoc at best.
At one point, after a long day of volunteer training, I ended up driving a friend back to her car and engaged in an extremely emotional discussion. She and her family became active during the 2000 campaign and have donated an immeasurable amount of blood, sweat, and tears to the efforts to elect both Al Gore and John Kerry. I will never forget this conversation because I had been waiting to have it with anyone who would listen and it just so happened she had as well. We both agreed that regardless of the outcome of this election the most important thing moving forward was to build a highly disciplined and motivated Democratic machine that doesn’t pull up stakes as soon as the election is over.
The folks over at Mother Jones appear to have come to the same conclusion in these two pieces; A Gathering Swarm, and Life of the Party. Their take in a nutshell is that this election was either the best we could do or the first step in a greater movement.
In the tangle and promise ahead, much will depend on activist networks like MoveOn and America Coming Together, but also on lesser-known movement-party hybrids like Wellstone Action. A national effort to train political candidates, teach activists how to campaign, and turn out the vote, Wellstone Action is driven by the fierce desire to harness movement spirit to organizational force.
I could not agree more, and let’s not forget Democracy for America - after all it was DFA (then Dean for America) that awoke so much of the Democratic base.
Looking back on this past year I choose to see 2004 as a good first step toward building that highly disciplined and motivated Democratic machine. In order to make this a reality, I resolve in 2005 to continue to dedicate considerable time and effort toward working with the aforementioned organizations and using this blog to reach out to other like-minded individuals.
Happy New Year!
Ringing in the New Year in Pennsylvania
While surfing Blog Explosion I stumbled upon this excellent list of…um…unique Pennsylvania New Year’s Eve celebrations. I have not fact-checked this list so feel free to do so.
How Pennsylvania is ringing in the New Year:Harrisburg, Pa., will return to its custom of dropping a giant strawberry this year. Last year, the city dropped a cow painted to look like a strawberry as part of a preview for Cow Parade Harrisburg.
Lancaster and York, Pa., are known as Red Rose City and White Rose City, respectively. In Lancaster, the city raises a red rose. York residents watch the drop of a white rose into a giant vase to announce the new year.
Elizabethtown, Pa., a huge M&M will be lowered in Center Square at 7 p.m. The town chose 7 p.m. to mark the new year in its sister city, Letterkenney, Ireland. Elizabethtown is home to an M&M Mars plant.
A summer tradition is revised in a different way in Falmouth, Pa., where the community lowers a stuffed goat. The town is known for its day of goat races in the summer.
Manheim, Pa., will raise an orb.
In York County, Dillsburg will lower a pickle.
Middletown, Pa., will be somewhat normal and drop a ball.
Hummelstown, Pa., will be weird and drop a lollipop.
Lebanon, Pa., will drop 7 1/2-foot-long bologna at midnight. The piece of meat weighs about 120 pounds and is the largest they have made for the drop so far. Also in Lebanon County, Cleona will continue the tradition it started last year and drop a pretzel from a tower at the Cleona fire station.
Shippensburg, Pa., will drop an anchor to welcome the new year!
Newville, Pa., will drop a big spring.
Hat tip to MrBob.
No she did not say that…
Looks like Ann “Kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity” Coulter is recycling material. The following beautiful holiday message can be found on her website:
To The People Of Islam:
Just think: If we’d invaded your countries, killed your leaders and converted you to Christianity YOU’D ALL BE OPENING CHRISTMAS PRESENTS RIGHT ABOUT NOW!
Merry Christmas
Remember, this is the compassionate conservative that has been propping up the Liberal Assault on Christmas myth. Hey Ann, I imagine Salman Rushde might be looking for a roomate, just an idea.
Hat tip to Liz over at Honsberger is a Liar.
Shut ‘em down already
For at least the past five years anyone lucky enough to live in a city served by US Airways has been treated to the following mantra, “concessions, concessions, concessions.” Bankrupt in 2002 and again in 2004, the only reason they are still around is massive corporate welfare in the form of bailouts (which they have yet to repay). Now these people who would run a lemonade stand into the ground are marching out the mantra once again asking employees to volunteer over the holidays.
The company, which is seeking concessions from the union representing mechanics and baggage handlers, said it has asked employees to volunteer at Philadelphia from Dec. 30 to Jan. 3. Shares of US Airways fell more than 3 percent.While the volunteers will not get paid, employees scheduled to work in Philadelphia over that period will get paid, a US Airways spokesman told Reuters.
“If you are an employee scheduled to work in Philadelphia, you will get paid. Aside from that, we are asking for employees to volunteer, in an effort to prepare for a very busy travel period this coming weekend,” David Castelveter, US Airways spokesman, told Reuters.
IMHO it is time for US Airways to either find management that knows what they are doing or do us all a favor and close up shop. I am sure we could find several million Americans that are more deserving of the $717 million welfare check US Air squandered.
Nicorette Wins Sydney-Hobart Race
Nicorette - Line Honours Winner
Nicorette crossed the finish line off Hobart’s Castray Esplanade at 5.10.44 am on a chilly and wet morning, sailing up the Derwent River under spinnaker in an 8 knot southerly breeze.…
Her elapsed time for the race of about 2 days 16 hours 00 minutes 44 seconds is more than 21 hours outside Nokia’s record of 1 day 19 hours 48 minutes 02 seconds set in 1999.
Sorry for the diversion but if there were one place I would like to be other than with my family it is down under grinding…for anyone (if anyone needs crew I am free).
Social Security Under Attack
If you were paying close attention you may have heard the Bush administration announce yesterday that they are planning a “campaign style” marketing blitz to convince the American public of the need for Social Security privitization beginning January 1. In an effort to help provide you with some context in this debate, extra emphasis will be placed here on covering the topic. To get this thing going your editor has decided to republish the following piece by veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas in it’s entirety.
Keep Hands Off Social Security
Bush Shouldn’t Break Promises Of System
December 22, 2004President George W. Bush is proposing to erode the Social Security system by privatizing part of it, making Wall Street the big winner of a huge financial windfall.
Bush wants workers to earmark 2 percent of their Social Security payroll taxes for individual private investment accounts, a move that would undermine funding for the 69-year-old program that was designed to provide retirees with a secure income.
The emphasis in Social Security should be on “security.” Bush’s plan to rely on the stock market undermines that value.
Bush has been fixated on Social Security since he first took office and has been determined to chip away at the government role. His reelection and the Republican majority in Congress have galvanized him into action.
Over the years, Republicans have tried to scare young people by telling them that their Social Security checks won’t be there when they become eligible to collect benefits. Now Bush is falsely proclaiming that there is a financial “crisis” in Social Security. If he repeats that often enough, he may convince people that the program is on the rocks, just as he successfully led the nation into war under the fallacy that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and ties to the al-Qaida terrorist network.
Social Security will be solvent until 2042, though analysts say that more will be paid out in benefits than collected in payroll taxes, starting in 2018.
In 1983, when the program had a short-term financial problem, former President Ronald Reagan tapped Alan Greenspan, now chairman of the Federal Reserve System, to head a commission to propose a fix.
The Greenspan panel made recommendations to bolster the program, including a gradual increase on the payroll tax on employees and employers that went up to 7.65 percent in 1990.
It seems Bush is obsessed with wiping out the last vestige of the New Deal era, a safety net that provides a guaranteed monthly government check for the elderly, the disabled, widows and orphans, and other dependent children.
He has offered no new blueprint to transform Social Security, except to lay down the law that there will be no payroll tax increases and there will be no change in benefits for those now receiving them. Those preconditions appear designed to improve the marketing of his proposed overhaul of the retirement system.
Analysts estimate it will take $2 trillion in transition costs to privatize the system over 10 years. The administration is reportedly sounding out Wall Street on the impact of borrowing some $2 trillion from the movers and shakers in the bond markets. And what will that do to the ballooning budget deficit?
The Great Depression and the 1929 stock market crash prompted Franklin D. Roosevelt to lay the groundwork for the Social Security program to alleviate the poverty of senior citizens at the time. The law was proposed in 1935 and enacted in 1936.
The system works. More than 99 percent of the Social Security revenues from tax collections go to pay benefits. Less than 1 percent is devoted to overhead expenses.
Anyone who remembers the 1929 Wall Street debacle knows that it would be risky business to divert our Social Security payroll taxes to play the market. There have many other market collapses since. The dot-com implosion changed the retirement plans of millions of Americans. More recently, it would be well to “think Enron.”
Bush promoted privatization at his so-called two-day White House Economic Conference last week — a misnomer if there ever was one, since nearly all the attendees were cheerleading CEOs. Labor representatives were conspicuously among the uninvited.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan explained that Bush wanted to hear from the people who were “pro-growth.”
Social Security is often referred to as the third rail in politics because it is reputed to be dangerous for lawmakers to touch it. Bush may be able to talk his party into supporting privatization, but there will be huge resistance in Congress.
Some concerned organizations are banding together to fight any change. Among them are AARP, the AFL-CIO, the National Organization of Women and others.
Previous presidents — more in touch with workers — upheld the Social Security system when it was threatened and made changes that always kept it intact.
Roosevelt said it was “a law that takes care of human needs.”
When enacted, the law was evidence that America will keep the promises to the elderly and disadvantaged it made in troubled times. Bush should be stopped from breaking those promises.
(Helen Thomas can be reached at the e-mail address hthomas@hearstdc.com).
COPS North Pole
NORAD Celebrates 50 Years Tracking Santa
For one night a year the group that inspired War Games, tucked away under Cheyenne Mountain, focuses their attention on a task other than protecting the U.S. from nuclear armageddon. They focus all their energy and expensive tracking gadgetry on following Santa’s trip around the globe. Beginning tomorrow evening NORAD will undertake this event for the 50th year in a row.
To watch this awesome display of technical wizardry head over to NORAD Tracks Santa and enjoy!
P.S. Those of you upset at the Christ-less spectacle this creates, get a life! Oh, and Happy Holidays…I mean Merry Christmas.
Hat Tip to Artie See.
Upcoming Events Added
For quite some time your fair editor has planned to add an Upcoming Events section to this here blog but utter laziness has prevented him from doing so. Well, the coincidental occurrence of two events at Finnigan’s Wake in one month has broken the laziness spell. The new section (to the left below the search) will hopefully remain a fixture here but it will require your help. If anyone would like to promote an event please send an email with the details, and preferably a hyper-link to goose3five(at)gmail(dot)com.
EPIC?
What is EPIC?
Sounds a bit like Fox News on ‘roids to me, give the people what they want.
Hat tip to The Commissar.
Photographic Evidence of Liberal Assault on Christmas
As you have all heard there is a Liberal Assault on Christmas underway which we should all be very afraid of. Now I have exclusive photographic evidence of the root of this evil scourge…my fuzzy little liberal dog Puck.
As you can see, he has already begun to work his Satanic, America-hating ways on my wife and daughter…
Please help us…Please!
Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, and Happy Kwanzaa to all!
New Digital Camera
I took the digital camera plunge three years ago shortly after my daughter was born. Vicky and I figured, correctly, that we would save piles of cash by taking digital pictures and only getting prints of the ones we really liked. At the time we purchased a Kodak DX3900 3.1 Megapixel point-and-shoot style camera. It has served us well and continues to do so today.
Now I love photography. During my junior year of high school I began a photography course that was cut short by my family’s abrupt move from Colorado to Michigan (that’s another story) but this little taste had me hooked. In 1988 I purchased an early model Canon EOS Rebel which, for the lay person, is an excellent camera as it has both fully automatic as well as fully manual options.
When Canon announced the release of the EOS 300D / Digital Rebel last year I began a campaign to convince Vicky that I must have one. I am happy to report that the campaign has ended in success and I am now the proud owner of a new 6.3 Megapixel Canon EOS 300D / Digital Rebel! I am still getting used to it but here are a couple of shots taken on Friday at Coons Corners, PA, a stop on my return trip from Syracuse. Click on the thumbnails below to see slightly larger versions (reduced significantly in size from the originals).
It’s Time to Stop Being Hit…a letter from Michael Moore
Hat tip to Natalie Davis…
Dear Friends,
It is no surprise that the Republicans are sore winners. They have spent the better part of the past month beating their chests, threatening to send to Siberia any Republican who doesn’t toe the line (poor Arlen Specter), and promising everything short of martial law if the Democrats don’t do what they are told.
What’s worse is to watch the pathetic sight of the DLC (the conservative, pro-corporate group of Democrats) apologizing for being Democrats and promising to “purge” the party of the likes of, well, all of US! Their comments are so hilarious and really not even worth recognizing but the media is paying so much attention to them, I thought it might be worth doing a little reality check.
The most people the DLC is able to get out to an event of theirs is about 200 at their annual dinner (where you have to pay thousands of dollars to get in).
Contrast this with the following:
*Total members of Move On: More than 2,000,000
*Total Attendance at Vote for Change Concerts: An estimated 280,000
*Total Union Members in U.S.: Around 16,000,000
*Total Number of People Who Have Seen “Fahrenheit 9/11″: Over 50 million
*Total number of you reading this: Perhaps 10 million or more
The days of trying to move the Democratic Party to the right are over. We lost a very close election (a one-state difference) by running the #1 liberal in the Senate. Not bad. The country is shifting in our direction, not to the right. But the country was attacked and people were scared. They were manipulated with fear. And America has never thrown a sitting president out during wartime. That’s the facts. Oh, and our candidate could have run a better campaign (but we’ll have that discussion another day).
In the meantime, while we reflect on what went wrong, I would like to pass on to you an essay that a friend who works with abuse victims sent to me. It was written by a woman who has spent years working as an advocate for victims of domestic abuse and she sees many parallels between her work and the reaction of many Democrats to last month’s election. Her name is Mel Giles and here is what she had to say…
You Can’t Cheat An Honest Man (or Woman)
My Fellow Friends of Liberty,
Greetings, from your humble servant, The Scarecrow!
In his summit of last week and his press conference of today, King George reveals his priorities for his final years in office — safe as a lame duck from political reprisals and secure as the leader of the party in control of both houses of Congress.
Please forgive your ancient writer — my old ears must not be what they once were — but in all of that I did not hear one word about “gay marriage” or “abortion” or “morality” (save sermons for foreign peoples in your “colonies”, as of Iraq).
I had thought that that was what your last election was all about. King George would not have deceived hard-working, God-fearing people with such holier-than-thou proclamations, while plotting the enrichment of the rich at the expense of those and all other commoners, would he?
Of course he would, and did! That is how tyrants reign — by deception if possible, by force if necessary — because otherwise they could not possibly achieve their goals to the detriment of the masses, who by their sheer numbers if nothing else (like common sense) hold the true power in any state.
But the people themselves are, thus, ultimately responsible for the policies and effects of their government, as impact both themselves, at home, and others, beyond their borders.
Regardless of whether your election was stolen or not — and you know the opinion of yours truly — it is a most unfortunate fact of life that more or less half of your citizenry has “bought” the lies that King George sells, and often for less than admirable motives.
Presently, King George promises more money for the young when they are old; but by all accounts, it will either take money from those who now are old or burden those who are young and those not yet born with crushing burdens of debt.
If the funds for Securing Society can be managed more profitably, should not King George and his administration do so?! What captain of a ship of state when seeing troubled waters ahead (and the degree and immediacy of the troubles are also in question) simply leaves the helm and tells the sailors to fend for themselves? That is not “leadership” — another of those “values” King George supposedly championed during his campaign — that is, frankly, cowardice — akin to deserting one’s post during wartime (a charge not unfamiliar to the King, when simply a Prince).
However, this particular instance goes beyond that pale. For the party of the King has long been opposed to not only the details but also the very concept of “Social Security”; all too many (fortunately not all) who are rich and powerful are more than happy for society to be a free-for-all, every man for himself!
And selfishness is not only a doctrine of hypocrisy for one who professes to follow the teachings of The Christ but is also, all too often, the siren song of temptation that lures commoners to buy into such “get something for nothing” schemes (King George refuses to even discuss any pragmatic, probably painful means of reform, which he hopes the Left will suggest and thus become the scapegoats for).
“Get something for nothing”? As a pixilated, bulbous nosed comedian of your old moving-pictures once said, “You can’t cheat an honest man.”
Resist the temptation, good people; use your common sense and common decency. The more you care for one another — old and young, male and female, well-to-do and wanting — the more you care for yourselves…as long as you live and work together as one nation.
Never let yourselves be divided — by the short-sighted or opportunistic at home or abroad — and you will never be conquered — by others or your own baser instincts.
Appealing, as ever, to the better angels of your nature, I remain…
Your Faithful Servant,
Morality in the Real World: Why Is It OK to Lie?
AN OPEN LETTER
TO: George W. Bush
CC: Dick Cheney, Karl Rove
SUBJECT: Why is it OK to lie?
Mr. Bush:
In both of your Presidential campaigns, your tried to make “morality” your message. In your first campaign for President, you promised that if you won the election, Washington will no longer be “a place of bitterness and name calling and failed leadership”. You promised to set “a tone of civility and bipartisanship that gets things done” . You also promised to “swear to uphold the honor and integrity of the office to which I have been elected, so help me God”.
Instead, we now live in a nation that is more divided than at any time in over 30 years. You started a war based on “intelligence” that was untrue, then later pretended that particular lie didn’t matter. You have cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans, while breaking your promise of avoiding a budget deficit. At the same time you have reduced funding to schools, which you had promised to increase, greatly increasing the burden on local taxpayers. You have actually cut funding for emergency responders and military families, who you had clearly promised to support.
As a result of your policies, fewer people have jobs than did four years ago; many jobs have been lost to foreign countries, while more and more people are forced to take jobs that do not pay a living wage. Even though you promised to improve the economy, many more Americans are now living in poverty than when you took office; at the same time, the number of people without health insurance has skyrocketed. You even want to take money away from retired people’s Social Security, and instead gamble with it in the stock market - while paying hefty fees to stockbrokers and fund managers.
You based much of your recent Presidential campaign on misrepresenting you opponent. Both you and your proxies made numerous statements that distorted your opponent’s record; many of these were quotes taken out of context. Some of your supporters even told outright lies, and you did little to stop them. The hard feelings created by your campaign will last much longer than your administration.
I could spell out many, many more examples of deception and lies that have come from you and those who represent you. Whatever happened to your promises to restore integrity to the government? You also promised to bring unity to the people of the United States; instead, you have divided them in ways not seen in decades. And, do you even care how the rest of the world sees you?
You might want to re-read Matthew 7: 15-20 (NIV); “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.”
Mr. Bush, I’ve outlined just a few of the many examples of bad fruit that are a direct result of your actions. How can we believe what you say, in light of what you have already done?
-Artie See