Politics Archive
These posts are all in this one category.
They didn't allow cameras so this is from my cell phone.
On Monday I'll be attending an event in DC hosted by President George W. Bush. He will be speaking about defending democracy against terrorism.
Any suggestions on questions I should ask, assuming they let us ask our own questions without approving them first?
I just finished watching the Oscar-winning movie Gandhi.
It's amazing that a 20 year old movie about one man's work almost 60 years ago can still be so moving and inspiring today.
Wikipedia entry on Mahatma Gandhi.
It's disappointing that the problems that India faced are being mirrored today in Iraq. Like Iraq today, India suffered from insurgents, terrorism, massacres, and religious wars. Gandhi knew these violent tactics would not work again the stubborn England, which only fought back harder. His nonviolence measure eventually prevailed, bringing India her independence and peace in the country.
Could Gandhi's principles of nonviolence work in Iraqi? Do the people of Iraq need their own Gandhi to inspire them? What if America took the first step by following Gandhi's principles of nonviolence?
Have you ever wondered if your political views match your political affliation?
Wonder no more with this simple anonymous test.
My results are what I expected:
| You are a Social Liberal (73% permissive) and an... Economic Moderate (50% permissive) You are best described as a:
|
From CNN Money:
President signs executive order allowing contractors to pay below prevailing wage in affected areas.
This seems like a recipe for further disaster as skilled workers now have less incentive to seek work in the affected areas.
In 2001 President Bush appointed Joseph Allbaugh to head of FEMA.
Allbaugh's first hire was college roommate Michael Brown, who's previous job was the commissioner for the International Arabian Horse Association. Brown was forced to resign after "numerous lawsuits were filed against the organization over disciplinary actions." (Source)
In 2003 Allbaugh leaves FEMA and starts a consulting firm for companies interested in reconstruction contracts in Iraq.
Even with a background that doesn't seem to qualify him for the job, President Bush appoints Brown to the new head of FEMA in 2003.
Today Allbaugh is the lobbyist for Halliburton responsible for getting disaster relief contracts in Louisiana.
Update at 5:40pm:
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced that he has recalled Brown, the embattled director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, from his post as head of federal relief efforts on the ground in the Gulf Coast area and has replaced him with a senior Coast Guard officer.
Source: Washington Post
"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" - President Bush last week.
From WashingtonPost.com
There have been other moments of tension. At a fire near the French Quarter, Williams noted in a posting on NBC's Web site, a police officer from out of town "raised the muzzle of her weapon and aimed it at members of the media . . . obvious members of the media . . . armed only with notepads." He also noted that the National Guard is barring journalists from the city's convention center and Superdome, the very facilities that evacuees were barred from leaving last week.
From LostRemote.com:
Reporters Without Borders says it knows of at least two cases of police confiscating or destroying cameras of journalists working in the New Orleans area. "When [police] realized [Toronto Star photographer Lucas Oleniuk] had photographed them hitting looters, they hurled him to the ground, grabbed his two cameras and removed memory cards containing around 350 pictures," says Reporter Without Borders.
I've watched a lot of Katrina coverage on FOX News, CNN, and MSNBC this past week. It's been strange that reporters rescue workers talking about bodies floating everywhere but the video and photo coverage doesn't support that.
Apparently FEMA has banned photos of the dead.
Seeing floating dead bodies is not the sort of thing I would like to see, but the loss of life is far more important casualty of this storm than the ruined buildings.
We've seen this same phenomena with the Iraq war coverage.
Nobody wants to see the bodies, but by ignoring them I feel that we are dumbing down the coverage of the real causalities of these darker days in our history.
From LostRemote:
The White House press corps, which is often criticized for being toothless, has found a new set of choppers. Read the transcript from today's briefing - Scott McClellan's first since the disaster. The press corps simply isn't accepting the administration's position that this is not the time to "play the blame game," with one reporter accusing McClellan of saying nothing more than talking points. Snarkiest question: "Is "Brownie" still doing a "heck of a job," according to the President?"
Personally I'd feel much safer if they figured out the people to blame, and fixed the problems now, rather than wait several years and put the findings in an another document that proves what we susspected but is too late to help.
A timeline of Katrina events with links to press releases and articles.
Obviously Bush, Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice cannot be held accountable for the lack of government response because they had far more important things going on.
Saw this on Joel on Software:
JunkFax.org: “Congress is about to do for junk faxes what they recently did for spam: Make it LEGAL as long as a qualified advertiser puts an "opt out" notice on the faxes!”
And we all know how well CAN-SPAM is working.... I get about 1000 spam messages a day, glad I don't have a fax machine to worry about too.
From BigBrainBoy:
Not much to be said here. This does rule out the terrifying possibility of an unkillable zombie Bin Laden though. Does anyone know how to become an "expert" for the news media? Seems like an easy job.One of my friends commented that "at least it's fair and balanced".
Diebold, provider for most of the election machines used in the past election, has settled with the state of California for providing insecure voting machines. Researchers showed that the systems could "easily allow someone to cast multiple votes in the same election." Diebold is paying California and Alameda County $2.6 million.
Diebold is facing charges in other states as well.
In 2003, Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell was under fire for proclaiming that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." O'Dell, a top contributers to the Bush Campaign, was proclaimed a "Pioneer" at Bush's Crawford, Texas Ranch during a fund raising dinner, sharing a spot once held by Enron CEO Kenneth Lay.
It was also recently discovered that, in 2000, Florida Republican Congressman Tom Feeney paid a NASA programmer to build a prototype that could change votes on touchscreen voting machines. It is still unknown if what was built had effected the election results.
BlackBoxVoting has been covering these and many other voting issues, something that the US media has been ignoring since the election.