Nearing The End

...of the semester. Finals are fast approaching and the work is piling up. Hopefully I will have time to update this thing in the next few days regardless. Many things to discuss:

-WHRB's Record Hospital Fest
-Celtics post season potential minus the infallible KG
-Spring time topics such as bicycling and skateboarding
-Importance of a renewed push for an Assault Weapons Ban





Check back in a few days!

Washington, D.C...now?

About to hit to the road in a few hours (oh ya 3 am status) with the Hopkin's sisters. The plan is to try and make it to the district by the early afternoon. It's a long story...VISA's...Korea's...and we have to be back by midnight tomorrow night. When it comes to certain people, there are some things you just don't think twice about doing.



I'll see if I can sneak in a quick interview with President Obama. I can settle for Rahm Emanuel.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer Says Get On Your Bikes And Ride-Republicans/Centrists Say No

This Bipartisan thing has really come back to bite President Obama in the ass. American's are on board with the President and the notion that if drastic and deliberate action is not taken soon, we will be in economic peril. All of this is obvious. Terrible concessions are being made in the name of "bipartisanship". It just needs to stop. President Obama won with a landslide victory. I am not saying its any kind of a mandate aimed at ignoring Republicans, but I am saying this: Republicans need to acknowledge that eight years of their neo-conservative ideas have been one of the biggest contributing factors to why we are in such a quagmire right now.

Republicans, "centrists", blue-dog democrats and the rest are concerned with spending. All they can talk about is how big government is bad and how this is a "pork" stimulus bill. I can see their smug faces right now. American's don't care if this spending spree is going to continue to increase the nation's deficit in such a time of need. Eliminating "pork" from the bill doesn't put real pork on the kitchen table.

People need to be put to work. That is the only thing that is going to jump start this economy. Rather then spend stimulus money on taxcuts, each dollar would be so much more effective if it were put to use for public works projects, health care research, green energy projects, etc. This is not socialism and the right wingnuts need to stop trying to make people think that it is. Our nation's infrastructure is literally on a direct path crumbling beneath us and it will only get worse. What's an easy way to employ people? Bid out the contracts!

Check out Rep. Earl Blumenauer common sense regarding this:

With this latest attempt to strip bike funding from the recovery bill, Republicans have once again demonstrated how out of touch they are with their pathologically short-sighted attacks on bicycles. To their detriment, they are continuing their trend from last Congress of using the most economical, energy-efficient, and healthy forms of transportation as their whipping post. Investment in bike paths will not only improve our economy, and take our country in the right direction for the future; it is exactly the kind of investment the American people want.

...

Think about it: More than 50% of working Americans live less than 5 miles from work, an easy bicycle commute. Already more than 490,000 Americans bike to work; in Portland, 8% of downtown workers are bicycle commuters. Individually, they are saving $1,825 in auto-related costs, reducing their carbon emissions by 128 pounds per year, saving 145 gallons of gasoline, avoiding 50 hours of being stuck in traffic, burning 9,000 calories, reducing their risk of heart attack and stroke by 50%, and enjoying 14% fewer claims on their health insurance.

Nationally, if we doubled the current 1% of all trips by bike to 2%, we would collectively save more 693 million gallons of gasoline - that's more than $5 billion dollars - each year. From 2007 - 2008, bicyclists reduced the amount Americans drive by 100 million miles.

I am big cycling enthuist myselfe and I wish more people would get into it. I bought a road bike in fine condition off of craigslist for 40 dollars. Spent about 20 more dollars doing some minor repairs and it was good to go. It is now my sole form of transportation (no car) and my sole form of exercise (way to lazy to work out). I think I heard somewhere once America has an obesity problem...well this might kill two birds with one stone.

This post was a little all over the place, mainly because I was trying to squeeze in a bunch of ideas in about 15 minutes with no real plan...I'm going to be refocusing my efforts in the next few days and hopefully get the next entries more cleaned up and organized before I post them.

President Fails to Lift Bullshit Ban

      Amongst all the hype and controversy concerning Bush lifting the offshore drilling ban, one key argument has seemed to have flown beneath the public discourse for too long.   Correct me if I'm wrong, but up until reading this post from Bob Cesca high lighting the common misconception that this oil will be "ours" for the keeping.  Unless the off shore drilling platforms and their locations nationalized, they will produce oil for the highest bidder no matter their country of origin.  Compare this to that of another gas station opening amidst an area already occupied by three other gas stations.  Now for fun let's say two of those gas stations, although having different names, are in fact, one in the same.  There will be no outrageous declines in fuel costs.  The only result of this experiment would be that competition amongst the stations would increase by some degree, causing a slight drop fuel.  Although lower, the cost will still fluctuate in the market place on the daily.  The myth, propped up by McBush, was that this magical notion of off shore drilling would suddenly push us into a new age of energy independence (a.k.a. we don't have to give our gas money to the Middle East) where we would thrive on our fuel...Up to ten years before anyone sees a drop of that gas.  Put that money into anything-amtrack, wind power, solar power, and the newest of new ideas.  I'm not the scientist, but I love the hypothetical, and to watch it be thrown away.

John McCain is a qualified hero, not president

   I was reading the Daily Kos when I came across this article written by Lt. General Robert G. Gard (pictured center), pertaining to the notion that prisoner of war status grants you the experience required to be a Commander-in-Chief.  Now I know this argument has been made a million times already in the past few days by everyone and their left-wing mom's but I think it's refreshing to have these suspicions confirmed by another veteran who served in Vietnam as well as Korea.  As we all know a typical defensive tactic from the right would be to criticize the original critics by claiming they couldn't possibly evaluate what a veteran's experience grants them without having a similar experience themselves. Well, to that I say word to my man Lt. Gen. Bobby Gard.  

   We live in age where the poor judgement of our politicians have left us in a hellish foreign policy scenario.  We need more then hope for an exit strategy.  We need carefully calculated troop withdrawals based upon the political climate within Iraq.  Our next leader needs to be able to understand the concerns of this nation and that of Iraq, and must attempt to balance them in the the best way.  

     It is important for us citizens to examine all aspects of a candidate, not just those highlighted by the candidate themselves (that goes for Obama too).  Not every politician is perfect and certainly not these two so it is important to identify their strengths and weaknesses objectively.  

Cameras

 Security cameras.  Once just for your local bank lobby or sketchy convenience store, have been made a part of the daily lives for Londoners since their first appearance circa 1984 (coincidence...?).   As if that whole system wasn't athouritarian enough for you, the latest implications have arrived:

Shouting Big Brother Cameras Use Child Voices  "A previously localized trial of CCTV cameras that allow local government officials to monitor people in the streets and shout orders at anyone they deem to be acting in an anti-social manner is to be enforced nationwide across the UK.  In a bizarre psychological move the cameras will speak in a child's voice.   In an incredibly Orwellian move, loudspeakers are to be fitted to surveillance cameras throughout major cities, allowing CCTV operators to bark commands at people who drop litter, act in an aggressive manner or loiter."

       Everything about this speaks bad.  With the alleged ever-constant threat of terrorism looming over people's heads, the governments, in either a desperate move to look like they are responding to threats or a perfectly calculated next step in the move towards has challenged the freedom of people everywhere.  While it is easy for us to sit stateside and wonder what kind of people would allow their country to do such a thing I give you this.  Even the hope machine didn't have the guts to call it like we all see it.  Or maybe that's just it, maybe we're just putting the blinders on ourselves.

Tom