Judge threatens gag order on effort to restore privacy of ballot
Don’t be confused, and don’t let anyone tell you that you shouldn’t talk about this. TO BE CLEAR: THE PUBLIC HAS BOTH THE RIGHT TO INSPECT BALLOTS AND THE RIGHT TO A SECRET BALLOT We have a right to BOTH. Some election officials have been conflating these two issues, claiming that if we examine ballots…
Lessons from the American Revolution – learned and unlearned
Happy Birthday America! “[T]hese truths are self-evident…all men are created equal…they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…among these…Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…Governments derive their powers from the consent of the governed…†That’s our democracy, challenging the English monarchy with a new concept of equality for all. John Burbank, Executive Director…
CO2 Emissions are a Planetary Problem
I have noticed that the foolish and/or dishonest folks who remain interested or reimbursed to disseminate misleading information about anthropogenic global warming are repeating the story about the fall in US CO2 emissions. That misleading presentation is being framed as evidence that the burning of fossil fuels and emission of C02 is not a real…
Is conservatism curable?
In a brilliant article, Steven Jonas, Professor of Preventive Medicine at the School of Medicine, Stony Brook University (NY) Is Homophobia Curable?. Don’t misread that. He’s asking is homoPHOBIA curable. This suggests another question: is conservatism curable? For conservativism is clearly a moral disease of character, leading people to think it’s OK to: enrich the…
Romney Campaign caught lying about Bain Capital
OpEdNews is reporting in Bain Bombshell Bottom Line: ROMNEY LIED that Mitt Romney and Bain Capital falsely claimed that he had broken ties with the company. But Mother Jones reports: documents filed by Bain and Stericycle with the Securities and Exchange Commission–and obtained by Mother Jones–list Romney as an active participant in the investment. And…
Violcence-lovers taking over some Occupy groups
The Occupy Wall Street facebook page http://www.facebook.com/OccupyWallSt1 seems to have been hijacked by violence-loving Black Bloc members (or by infiltrators pretending to be such). I often see postings glorifying violence: images of protesters breaking windows or fighting police, with captions like “USA, GET SOME GREEK SPIRIT!” (See this image, for example.) This is bad news…
It's the Climate, Stupid.
The economy is a financial shadow of the state of the physical world. Economics is simply one way of measuring certain activity here on a small planet on a spiral arm of a somewhat non-descript galaxy in the known universe. There are lots of planets, rocks, planetoids, stars, dust motes in the universe that appear…
Lowering the Cost and Increasing Access to Health Care for All
According to our Insurance Commission, there are at least one million people in our State – including more than 100,000 children without adequate access to health care. Even for those with heath care, the cost has skyrocketed thanks to deregulation of the health care industry.  US health care costs are nearly triple what they…
Raising alarms about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): worse than NAFTA
America: A Fire Sale to Foreign Corporations The leaked document reveals that the trade agreement would give unprecedented political authority and legal protection to foreign corporations. Specifically, TPP would (1) severely limit regulation of foreign corporations operating within U.S. boundaries, giving them greater rights than domestic firms, (2) extend incentives for U.S. firms to move …