Winning the Future by David Goodloe During his State of the Union address last month, Barack Obama spoke of "winning the future." To most ears, it had a positive sound to it — even if Sarah Palin famously used the acronym WTF to describe her reaction to it (and it wasn't an abbreviation of "winning the future," either, the way that Gerald Ford's WIN in the 1970s was an … [Read more...] about Winning the Future (Guest Voice)
“Publicness” Needs Advocates Just Like Privacy
Mathew Ingram summarizes a speech by Jeff Jarvis at the Reboot Conference yesterday: [A]uthor and media blogger Jeff Jarvis told a room full of corporate and government privacy advocates something many of them probably didn’t want to hear: that society needs more protection for what he calls “publicness,” and less focus on locking down our personal information or prosecuting … [Read more...] about “Publicness” Needs Advocates Just Like Privacy
Newborn Democracy
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Why Republicans Should Support Planned Parenthood (Guest Voice)
Why Republicans Should Support Planned Parenthood by Tina Dupuy The GOP wants to paint itself as fiscally conservative. In the face of all evidence to the contrary (i.e. George W. Bush skyrocketing the size of government and the unpaid tax cuts bearing his name being championed by his party), they want to pretend they’re the “grownups” on budgetary matters. Yes, … [Read more...] about Why Republicans Should Support Planned Parenthood (Guest Voice)
The Americanization of Obama
Karl Rove has a new mission--to prove the President is a natural-born citizen. Alarmed by a survey showing 51 percent of Republican primary voters do not believe Barack Obama was born in the U.S. and another 21 percent "not sure," Bush's former Brain warns, “Within our party, we’ve got to be very careful about allowing these people who are the Birthers and the 9/11-deniers … [Read more...] about The Americanization of Obama
Auroras And The Space Storm Threat
News of the biggest solar blast in years and the accompanying photos, are all over the news. Last year I posted this from New Scientist on what I thought was a credible space storm threat: IT IS midnight on 22 September 2012 and the skies above Manhattan are filled with a flickering curtain of colourful light. Few New Yorkers have seen the aurora this far south but their … [Read more...] about Auroras And The Space Storm Threat
Sarah Palin Doesn’t Know the Difference Between Milk and Infant Formula
Sarah Palin should always think twice before mocking anyone, because she only ends up displaying her own stupidity (my bolds): … [Read more...] about Sarah Palin Doesn’t Know the Difference Between Milk and Infant Formula
House Ties FCC Hands On Net Neutrality
It's legislation by budget fiat, and it's wrong. Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR, @repgregwalden), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, successfully introduced an amendment to H.R. 1 that would prohibit the Federal Communications Commission from using its budget to implement net neutrality rules passed in late 2010. A similar amendment lies in wait in … [Read more...] about House Ties FCC Hands On Net Neutrality
Wisconsin: Collective Bargaining Issue or Attempt to Destroy Unions’ Remaining Clout?
Ostensibly, the political battle in Wisconsin that inspired Democratic lawmakers to dramatically flee the state like Texas Democrats did in 2003 is over a bill that would in effect end collective bargaining for public workers. But some analysts in print and in the new and old media increasingly contend it's part of a more evident political plan to try to short-circuit the clout … [Read more...] about Wisconsin: Collective Bargaining Issue or Attempt to Destroy Unions’ Remaining Clout?
Sing A Long With Monty Python
Come on folks... sing right along and always look on the bright side of life … [Read more...] about Sing A Long With Monty Python
Hello And Goodbye For The Last Time
(EDITOR's NOTE: This was posted last night. We are leaving it on top of TMV until 12 noon EST today.) This is the last column of my life. The ugly sapping of my physical and mental strengths have overwhelmed me in my ordeal of fighting 4th stage lung cancer and colon cancer. The ravages of 30 years of diabetes has not helped. And the colon surgery has not been scheduled … [Read more...] about Hello And Goodbye For The Last Time
Obama To Dine With CEOs of Apple, Twitter, Netflix, Oracle, Yahoo, Others Tonight
Well, actually, I don't know if it's a dinner. It's been called an event, a meeting and a visit, but Mashable says "Obama is slated to sit down with Zuckerberg and other tech CEOs at a private dinner during his overnight trip to the West Coast." The president is set to arrive in San Francisco at 5:45 (PST). The LATimes has the official list of attendees and these … [Read more...] about Obama To Dine With CEOs of Apple, Twitter, Netflix, Oracle, Yahoo, Others Tonight
John Boehner “So Be It”
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Baghdad Wants U.S. Apologies and Restitution for Damage Done
Reuters reports that the Baghdad city government wants the United States to apologize and pay $1 billion for the damage done to the city by blast walls it erected and by our troops’ Humvees during the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The city’s government said in a statement: The U.S. forces changed this beautiful city to a camp in an ugly and destructive way, which reflected … [Read more...] about Baghdad Wants U.S. Apologies and Restitution for Damage Done
Ken Jennings On Playing Jeopardy Against Watson
Writing in Slate, Ken Jennings describes what it was like: [A]t IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Lab, an Eero Saarinen-designed fortress in the snowy wilds of New York's Westchester County, where the shows taped last month, I wasn't the hero at all. I was the villain. This was to be an away game for humanity, I realized as I walked onto the slightly-smaller-than-regulation … [Read more...] about Ken Jennings On Playing Jeopardy Against Watson
Abuse of News People: Is This Closeup Worth It?
What used to be unspeakable is now not only news but fodder for tweets, blog posts and myriad forms of comment. Freedom of information has advanced, hasn't it? A 39-year-old woman, CBS correspondent Lara Logan, is "beaten and assaulted" by a crowd in Cairo. We know because her network issued a terse press release, which the Washington Post and New York Times respectfully … [Read more...] about Abuse of News People: Is This Closeup Worth It?
Bad News for Readers and Authors: Borders Files for Bankruptcy Protection
There's bad news for readers (particularly those who travel and love to find a big bookstore) and authors: Borders, the country's second largest bookstore, is filing for bankruptcy protection and is closing 200 stores -- 30 percent of its total. It's the victim of a changing market (in books and how people buy them) and technology (in how some readers now read them). And -- … [Read more...] about Bad News for Readers and Authors: Borders Files for Bankruptcy Protection
Obama and the Failure of the Deficit Hawks
WASHINGTON -- For 30 years, conservative ideologues have played moderate deficit hawks for suckers. You'd think this might endow those middle-of-the-road deficit-busters with a touch of humility. Fat chance. Instead, they stick with their self-righteous moralism, pretending to be bipartisan and beyond ideology. In fact, they make the problem they want to solve worse by … [Read more...] about Obama and the Failure of the Deficit Hawks
Do We Need Social Security Reform Now? Yes…Yes…Yes.
When pols in Washington lie, it's business as usual. When they actually seem to believe the nonsense they're spouting, however, it gets scary. President Obama's recent comments about Social Security suggest that with respect to this issue, the man is so deeply immersed in kinky Beltway thinking he's lost touch with reality. The president has been criticized for not taking … [Read more...] about Do We Need Social Security Reform Now? Yes…Yes…Yes.
Liars Leap
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