August 31st, 2006
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: Tamara Conniff: The Comet's Top 20 Summer Songs for Labor Day Weekend
Labor Day Weekend is the last hurrah for summer. BBQs, friends and music. TheComet.com a lot to choose from for our Top 20. The good, the bad, the cheesy. We opted to only include songs that have the words "summer," "vacation," "sun," or at least some kind of water or heat reference in the title or lyrics. We also had to give honorable mention to the worst. Here is our playlist: 1. "Summertime Rolls" by Jane's Addiction (1988) From Jane's Addiction's groundbreaking debut "Nothing Shocking," Perry Farrell and company penned a dark and funky summer song that's pure poetry. Only Farrell can dream up "a girl whose fingernails are made of mother's pearl." Read More… More on Michael Jackson [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: John L. Esposito: Violence against women a universal problem, not an Islamic issue?
John L. Esposito and Sheila B. Lalwani Washington – Women are murdered in so-called honor killings everyday, and the public has a right to know more about these crimes and their victims. Read More… More on Islam [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: Richard Greener: Reinvigorate democracy – A Meaningful "None Of The Above" Voting Option
The best way to reinvigorate American democracy is a "None Of The Above" voting option laden with consequences. Americans seem to be increasingly dissatisfied with their political choices. But there has been very little change in the character, style and identity of those running for public office. Look, it's the new sheriff wannabe – just like the old sheriff. Amazing, isn't it, how quickly the "change" candidate becomes the pinstripe portrait of establishment protection once elected. Candidates from the left, once in office, veer to the center and often keep going until they become indistinguishable from the conservatives they ran against. Candidates from the libertarian right, once they are elected, continue funding the very federal programs they so despised as outsiders. And where does that leave the voters, left and right? Unhappy, angry and always setup to vote for the next "change" candidate who will inevitably turn out to be just like the rest. Do we ever rid ourselves of the old sheriff? How can dissatisfied voters register their discontent in a meaningful way? Right now they can't. Same old, same old. The winner in every election? Entrenched power. In Congressional districts and Senate races across the nation incumbents run for reelection thinking they have a job for life – hoping they have a job for life – doing everything within their power to secure that lifetime job. Usually their challengers are just more of the same looking for exactly the same thing. If they ever existed, there are no more citizen-office holders. American politics is a profession. It's not a calling. It's not a public service. No one is taking time from their "regular life" to serve the public interest in government – and then return to their "regular life" when their term is over. Instead we are besieged … [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: Rocky Kistner: Another Gulf oil explosion, a fiery reminder of what lies ahead
On the way to a meeting held by BP claims czar Ken Feinberg in Slidell yesterday, Derrick Evans wheeled his diesel pickup truck and FEMA trailer to a Mississippi River ferry crossing south of New Orleans. Derrick is probably the world's most experienced hand at dragging FEMA trailers. Over the past few years, he hauled 30 ft aluminum sided Katrina icons more than 30,000 miles across the country speaking out for the disenfranchised and homeless afflicted by the aftermath of Katrina. Derrick traces his heritage back to emancipated slaves who first settled Turkey Creek, MS, after the Civil War. He's a teacher and activist who has dedicated his life to helping vulnerable people along the Gulf Coast, a population that repeatedly confronts natural disasters and chemical assaults. "It took me a while to realize, but at its heart this whole thing is an environmental problem," he says. Read More… More on Gulf Oil Spill [Link]
Daily Kos: Give Boehner and the Republicans credit
Via Big Tent Democrat , House Republican leader and Speaker Wannabe John Boehner apparently has no qualms about owning the disaster in Iraq. “Some leaders who opposed, criticized, and fought tooth-and-nail to stop the surge strategy now proudly claim credit for the results,” Mr. Boehner’s speech said. If Boehner wants credit for the war, let him have it. President Obama wants credit for transitioning out of the war, not for the war itself. Boehner might not understand the difference, but Obama's result is about ending the war, while Boehner's is about the war. Apparently, Boehner is proud of results such as this : As the U.S. draws down in Iraq, it is leaving behind hundreds of abandoned or incomplete projects. More than $5 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds has been wasted on these projects — more than 10 percent of the $53.7 billion the US has spent on reconstruction in Iraq, according to audits from a U.S. watchdog agency. That amount is likely an underestimate, based on an analysis of more than 300 reports by auditors with the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. And it does not take into account security costs, which have run almost 17 percent for some projects. And this : The effort to keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists has been slowed by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the head of U.S. special forces. Fewer elite commandos are available for the hunt and their expertise has been degraded by “the decreased level of training,” Admiral Eric Olson said. They now have only a “limited” capability for this mission, he said. Meanwhile, the threat of extremists acquiring and using chemical, biological or nuclear arms “is greater now than at any other time in history,” Olson told the Senate … [Link]
AMERICAblog News: Jan Brewer: no more debates
And it was just starting to get fun in Arizona . Arizona Daily Star : Incumbent Republican Jan Brewer said Thursday she has no intention of participating in any more events with Democrat Terry Goddard. She said the only reason she debated him on Wednesday is she had to to qualify for more than $1.7 million in public funds for her campaign. "I certainly will take my message in a different venue out to the people of Arizona," she said. Brewer said she has been in elective office for 28 years, and Goddard has held office for nearly that long. "I think it's pretty defined what he stands for and what I stand for." Anyway, Brewer said, she believes the debates help Goddard more than they benefit her. [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: Jack Hidary: How to Order Pants like a President
You would think that the leader of the free world wouldn't even have to think about where his or her pants come from, but you would be wrong. In this recording, we get an insider's view into the presidential seams. LBJ was certainly known as a guy who go on and on, but if it takes him this long to get some pants how long did it take order up a battalion? Listen for yourself in How to Order Presidential Pants Read More… [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: Scott Mendelson: Tyler Perry As an Oscar Contender? Why It's Not As Crazy As It Sounds
He's the only mainstream filmmaker outside of Clint Eastwood who consistently makes adult dramas. All of his films boast fine performances by underemployed actors of color. Nothing would make me happier than a Perry film as a possible contender. Read More… More on The Oscars [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: Clay Farris Naff: Stephen Hawking to God: Your Services Are No Longer Needed; God to Hawking: You So Don't Get Who I Am
Authentic faith does not depend on traditional creation stories. "Faith" is a vague term, but I suggest it has two essential characteristics: it is a belief that ultimately some good will come of it all, and while its components may be reshaped by evidence it is a belief that transcends the evidence. Read More… More on Evolution [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: Craig Newmark: Social media helping people quit smoking
Hey, the folks at American Legacy Foundation are the real deal, set up by lots of states as part of a settlement deal with the tobacco companies. They run the Truth campaign, trying to prevent addiction among the young. Here's their new effort to help people out: Read More… [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: Johann Hari: The Debate In Britain's Labour Party: Are 'New Democrats' the Best They Can Ever Hope For?
The British Labour Party is infuriated that the climax of its race to pick a new leader has been overshadowed by Tony Blair's brief break from taking millions off the economy-crashing bank JP Morgan Chase, fawning over his 'good friend' and murderous tyrant Colonel Gadaffi, and agitating for the bombing of Iran. But they're wrong. This race has boiled down to a race between two brothers, called David and Ed Miliband. Their disagreement is, at its core, about whether the New Democrat/ New Labour philosophy is the best a centre-left government can ever aim for. The entry of the gurning ghost of Tony Blair is a clarifying third act. Looking at this Kane and Abel conflict, it's easy to ask: how different can two nasal policy wonks who emerged from the same womb really be? Yet this campaign has shown they want to lead very different Britains. David Miliband is, in American terms, a Blue Dog Democrat. He is being funded by exactly the same interests as Blair and the corrupt cacus of 'centrist' Democrats who serve the corporations that bankroll their campaigns. To pluck just one of his paymasters, David Claydon, a senior figure at the investment bank UBS, has handed him £50,000, as part of a gaggle of bankers who made it possible for him to outspend every other candidate combined. Read More… [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: Bil Browning: Janet Jackson, Hanging 'Fruits', & the Christianity Problem
While I took off mid-week to DC for contributor Phil Reese's birthday party and to see our new apartment, the LGBT news and opinion continued to flow out of Bilerico Project. Here's the best posts from this week in case you missed any of them: Sunday How we should be treating Ken Mehlman Filed by: Austen Crowder Read More… [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: Dr. Irene S. Levine: I can't believe she defriended me!
This week, I received an email from another writer who reminded me that she had once defriended me on Facebook. We both belong to the same professional association (which meets annually) but we live in different States and have virtually no contact with each other (although we might see each other's posts on forums). While I was stunned that I had been defriended, I had totally forgotten about the incident until I received her recent note. The subject line read I'm Sorry . My ex-Facebook friend wrote: Irene, I'm sorry that I defriended you last year after I felt hurt following some Facebook comments early last year. I'd like to think I've developed thicker skin since then…but I'm a human. 
Anyhow, I hope we can work beyond our differences… Read More… More on Facebook [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: James Zogby: Lies and the War That Has Not Ended
Those who brought this disaster down on us must be called to account for the fabrications, the embarrassment to our honor, and the waste of so many lives and resources. Until then, the conclusion to this sad chapter in Iraq will not have been written. Read More… More on Dick Cheney [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: Scott Shrake: Do YOU Agree with These Bumper Stickers?
Having been so inspired by the message T-shirts from last weekend's Restoring Honor rally in Washington, I spent the week traveling America's 50 states, photographing bumper stickers. They are a great way to have a voice in the public debate! See if you agree with these ones… or not! Read More… More on Climate Change [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: Osman Rashid: Technology in the Classroom: Why It Needs to Catch Up — And Fast
American students need to be educated in an innovative system that brilliantly and elegantly integrates the same technology required to succeed in their lives. Read More… [Link]
The Huffington Post Full Blog Feed: Omid Memarian: Supporters of Military Attack Against Iran; Ahmadinejad's Hidden Allies?
The summit meeting between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in Washington on 2 September 2010 testifies to the serious attention the Barack Obama administration is devoting to this enduring middle-east conflict. But even these vital negotiations are overshadowed by an issue with a potentially greater destructive capacity: the future of Iran, and the calculations of the United States and the wider international community in relation to the country's nuclear programmes and plans. These calculations are being made against the background of complex shifts and varying signals in Iranian domestic politics. An example of the latter came with the remark of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on 18 August 2010, that if Washington were to drop its mix of "threats and sanctions" towards Iran, then Tehran might be prepared to negotiate. At the same time he emphasised that the country will continue to pursue its nuclear project, a pledge symbolised by the opening of the Bushehr nuclear plant on 21 August 2010. Khamenei's scornful description of the economic and political pressure being exerted on Iran highlights the way that western (especially American, but also European) policies and attitudes also become part of Iran's own political calculations. The question then arises: how do sanctions, and the possibility of military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, play into current Iranian politics; will international pressure on Iran of this kind help Iran's opposition and even moderate conservatives to push towards democratic change, or rather contribute to strengthening the radical government in power? Read More… More on Barack Obama [Link]
AMERICAblog News: Rachel Maddow on White-washing Civil Rights
I recently wrote about " White-washing Civil Rights " — the attempt by Movement Conservatism to take the moral high ground away from progressives and Dems by muddying their race cred. And progressives have considerable race cred. Unlike any other issue (Social Security, for example), the morals of swinging strange black fruit from trees is, well, black-and-white . You can spin Social Security as "socialist"; you can't spin race-murder as anything but race-murder. Enter the Big Lie . And right on time , comes Haley Barbour, climbing the Beckian tree to reshout the Beckian Lie. Rachel Maddow and Eugene Robinson are on it. This is a thing of beauty : As I wrote earlier , this Big Lie has legs . And Robinson's right — this isn't an attempt to get black votes; that's beyond their reach with this argument. No, it's an attempt to give beleaguered white suburbanites — from the out-there racist to the not-at-all racist — a balm to soothe their conscience, or a lie to tell their neighbors, when they vote Republican. "I'm not racist; I'm actually expanding the Civil Rights movement to white people. Son of Lee Atwater just said so." Amazing how that works. GP (By the way, we don't have to be strategy-blind. There are many ways to use the lizard brain , which they have so carefully nourished, to our advantage. Start by considering this VoteVets ad .) [Link]
Swing State Project: WA-02: Larsen Trails Koster
SurveyUSA (8/31-9/2, likely voters, no trend lines): Rick Larsen (D-inc) : 46 John Koster (R) : 50 Undecided : 4 (MoE: ?4%) This poll comes in the wake of the final top-two primary results giving Koster a 298 vote lead over Larsen. Digging deeper, though, two Democratic candidates took a full 10% of the primary vote, resulting in a final score of 52-48 for Team Blue. This is the second time that Koster has won the top-two primary vote against Larsen, the first time coming in 2000, where Larsen ultimately won the general election by 50-46. Comparing these results to previous SUSA polls of this district in 2008 and 2006 , the partisan composition of the sample isn't what's hurting Larsen; the damage is coming from Larsen's struggles among independent voters. He loses those voters by 12 points, compared to monster-sized wins among indies in the past two cycles. The 18-34 year-old vote has shrunk substantially, too, down to 13% of the sample — leaving behind a demographic that flocks to Koster by 22 points. You may take issue with the poll, but this one is shaping up to be a very close race. [Link]
Daily Kos: Obama makes promises to America's suffering middle class
I don’t have to tell you that this is a very tough time for our country. Millions of our neighbors have been swept up in the worst recession in our lifetimes. And long before this recession hit, the middle class had been taking some hard shots. Long before this recession, the values of hard work and responsibility that built this country had been given short shrift. Kicking off the Labor Day weekend, President Obama used this morning's weekly address to enumerate the strides his administration has made on behalf of working men and women, the backbone of the great American middle class. He also took a bit of time in his opening to light into corporate America's irresponsibility: Companies were rewarded with tax breaks for creating jobs overseas. Wall Street firms turned huge profits by taking, in some cases, reckless risks and cutting corners. All of this came at the expense of working Americans, who were fighting harder and harder just to stay afloat – often borrowing against inflated home values to pay their bills. Ultimately, the house of cards collapsed. But on to those accomplishments: private sector job creation through funds for bridges, roads and light rail; aid to states to keep public sector workers like teachers and firefighters on the payroll; new ways for individuals to save for retirement; tax breaks for 95 percent of the middle class; tax cuts and loans to small business; closing tax loopholes for companies outsourcing jobs overseas; cutting subsidies to big banks that make student loans; and limits on insurers dropping the sick from their plans. In closing, he reminded Americans of shared beliefs and goals in hard work and responsibility: This Labor Day, we are reminded that we didn’t become the most prosperous country in the world by rewarding greed and … [Link]