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Beth Noveck, the Deputy Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology, was on c-span’s “Washington Journal” this a.m. She was talking about recent (within the last 24 hours) additions to the White House website.
http://www.Whitehouse.gov/open was just made available to encourage people to offer suggestions to make the government more transparent and open. Noveck said that the administration is looking for ideas to improve specific areas of government that could benefit from new technologies, systems, etc. They also want feedback to make the site better.
A weblog for scientists and technology people went up yesterday. Members of the administration want to brainstorm via comments on the weblog with citizens for a limit of ONE WEEK. Then, the next phase of the process will begin. After that, another phase will begin, and so on.
Maybe I'm just a stick in the mud. I realize that this is the internet and all, but I assume that people who post stuff here would like to at least appear intelligent. Is it too much to ask, then, that we take a moment to read the stuff we've written, at last once, before hitting "POST"?
I'm no English teacher, but I do at least attempt to check my spelling, grammar and sentence structure before posting anything. Even the best ideas can appear pretty stupid if presented poorly.
Thom,
Did it ever occur to you that your cats follow you guys around because they're social animals that require social interaction rather than they might worship you? Leave the worship to your many fans.
I'm sure that you've been in settings where people are walking around with their dogs on leashes. What happens when two people with their dogs on leashes walk toward each other? The two dogs strain at their leashes to try to check each other out. They're so desperate to interact with their own kind. And I recall some woman wrote a book about how, if given a choice, dogs almost always choose the company of other dogs over the company of humans. And apparently, dogs don't have the problem accepting the dognity of dogs that are different from them as humans have accepting the humanity of other humans who are different from us.
So, as to the question of whether you cat worships you, I'd guess that not having the option of associating with other cats, Higgins is willing to hang with you dawg.
all things have a buddha nature even a tree the daishonin wrote a letter entitle the enlightenment of plants
With regard to your discussion on religion ---
Any religion is safe and pure regardless of which one -- until government and greed for power gets involved....then it goes all wrong. I think that's why our founders put in a separation of church and state, as well as the history of Englands state church....
budhism is also based on science tom not only a mysticism. buddhism talks about the oneness of man and his enviroment. the oneness of the mind and body. the ten worlds hell hunger , animality anger humanity heaven learning relization bodhisatva and buddhahood. these ten worlds are inherited in ones life. man has whats called the buddha nature .
Thom, quick observation.
Obama isn't doing anything he didn't tell us he would do for two years on the campaign trail, and yet, when Cheney was asked about running for President, he said he was looking forward to retirement.
Now Obama is President, the election is over, and Cheney is going around telling us President Obama is making the country less safe.
Well, why didn't he run for President then? It's not like we didn't know what Obama's plans were. Cheney simply didn't want to be humiliated in a race he had no chance of winning. He was a coward during Vietnam, and he's a coward now.
PS: Is it just me, or did Cheney confess to breaking the law "only three times" (waterboarding) on National television?
ralph waldo emeron observe that all sucessful people agree on one thing that is the law of causality.
nichren daishonin described what he called the mystic law of cause and efect. based it on the proof ones see in it. nam myho renge kyo . man creates causes by thought word and action.
Thom, while you are in Anchorage, please look into the MORE environmental pipeline proposed for years by Alaska Natural Gas Development Authority (ANGDA), chaired by Scott Heyworth. The big three oil companies have been running the biggest scam re running their 3400 mile pipeline.
"Running a gas pipeline thru Denali National Park" for no real reason when an alternative environmental already disturbed corridor (along side TAPS.......and buried!) exists.
If I can get him to call in will you speak with him?
senater sanders there has been many times our nation has used terorism against people of other nation and within our nation . i feel we must bring this up in the public debate and face our past action, to make us a more perfect union. what do you think?
Obama: Prolonged Detention
Last night, Rachel Maddow talked about a new, radical, unconstitutional proposal that was included in Obama's speech yesterday. It is very disturbing:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#30877514
Beth Noveck, the Deputy Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology, was on c-span's "Washington Journal" this a.m. She was talking about recent (within the last 24 hours) additions to the White House website.
www.Whitehouse.gov/open was just made available to encourage people to offer suggestions to make the government more transparent and open. Noveck said that the administration is looking for ideas to improve specific areas of government that could benefit from new technologies, systems, etc. They also want feedback to make the site better.
A weblog for scientists and technology people went up yesterday. Members of the administration want to brainstorm via comments on the weblog with citizens for a limit of ONE WEEK. Then, the next phase of the process will begin. After that, another phase will begin, and so on.
Other sites include: www.data.gov, www.ostp.gov, www.whitehouse.gov/open/innovations
I think this sounds promising --- and interesting! 'Just wanted to pass it along.
I've been tuning in to Scott Horton's interviews via podcast on www.antiwar.com
and I am truly worried about the direction Obama is moving in. It seems he says what we want to hear with no intention of following through. I'm also worried about Cheney being in his face at every turn. I'm sorry to say that the future of the world looks very bleak to me.
To continue Thom's discussion with a caller on Thursday on the term "Nazi," the Encyclopedia Britannica’s article on fascism lists a dozen or so characteristics of that political system. Opposition to Marxism; opposition to parliamentary democracy; opposition to political and cultural liberalism; totalitarian ambitions; conservative economic programs; corporatism; alleged equality of social status; imperialism; military values; extreme nationalism; scapegoating; populism; antiurbanism; “racial unity” and a few others.
It doesn’t take much reflection to note that to some degree all of these characteristics are implied in Republican politics. A concern country turning “communist” under Obama has been expressed by lesser lights on the right. Congress as a check on executive power—or rather Republican power—we have seen in action for length of the Bush administration. We don’t need to tarry with the right-wing opposition to anything smacking of liberalism. Totalitarianism is tough prove, although Nixon did say that the president was above the law, and Bush/Cheney did trample on the Bill of Rights. Conservative economic programs and corporatism goes without saying. Alleged equality of social status—when Alex Castellano recently stated on CNN that Republicans were a “bottom-up” party, Donna Brazile told him to “stop your lies.” And so on and so forth.
Some of these characteristics, like scapegoating and “racial unity” were taken to their “logical” extreme by the Nazis. It can be detected in this country as well. Frankly, if someone regards a certain demographic in this country in terms of vermin and pests—and Thom knows what demographic I’m talking about—much as the Nazis portrayed the Jews in the propaganda film “The Eternal Jew,” then that person is little to be differentiated from the Nazi who espoused such a view. And those who remain silent in the face of it do, as Thomas More said, betoken their consent—which why when Pat Buchanan declared on the McLaughlin Group that “Hispanics are out to destroy America” the total silence of his co-hosts in response to this racist fulmination was more eloquent than what that bigoted, anti-Semitic fulminator actually said.
The torture of 135 african americans, over a 20 year period, by area 2 police commander Jon Burge blows your "emailers" suppositions out of the water. Jon Burge did it then for the same reasons they do it now: to extract false confessions. But because the victims were black, they are easily dismissed Everyone wonders how did this happen? I wonder why it took so long. Please you can save it.
In regard to Dick Cheney's shenanigans on Thursday, if it is true that Cheney’s poll numbers are going up, that’s merely proof that fear still trumps hope for many people. Cheney is clearly worried about how history will judge him. He may believe that inventing facts or twisting facts may allow him to be viewed favorably by those still see America surrounded by dark-skinned enemies, as Richard Slotkyn’s “Regeneration Through Violence” argued. But most thinking people ought to see through the pose; Cheney’s claim that “a hundred thousand lives have been saved” thanks to the Bush/Cheney civil rights destroying policies, and that the Obama administration is “hiding” the evidence that “many” terrorists plots have been foiled is mere demagoguery. Just like all those WMDs and mass graves that were never found, wouldn’t the administration have touted its “successes” with a bit more specificity? Or were the only “successes” worth mentioning the Miami 7 and Jose Padilla fiascos? Facts are facts, and they are not on Cheney’s side, and history will judge him on that criteria rather than on his fantasias.
Gas inventories down, prices up!
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/68552.html?storylink=omni_popular
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Richard Jackson - November 21, 1755
"Give me Liberty, or give me death."
Patrick Henry - March 25, 1775
If Guantanamo is such a showplace, then why haven't Condo's been built their.
Dick Cheney is a founding member of the new GOP. Grand Oligarchy Party.
Thom,
Over the last two days, I've heard you mock Americans who are afraid of having people they believe are terrorists moved from Guantanamo to prisons in the United States. You called them cowards and frightened little men and women.
I can understand criticizing government officials who should know better and demagogic politicians and media personalities for whipping up this fear, but it seems out of character for you (an advocate of Gandhian principles) to be mocking people who have been misinformed into fearfulness.
If these people are conservatives, we know they tend to fear people who look or speak differently than they do. But isn't it your job as a "progressive" opinion leader to be open to understanding their fears and helping your audience do the same?
One of the complaints one often hears from non-elite conservatives is that the left looks down on them and their concerns. I don't see how mocking their fears will help winning them over to more progressive views.
It also seems strange that you love to talk to and debate the the highly paid corporately backed right-wing fear mongers, showing them great respect and often attesting to their good character. But now, you're mocking the fears the common folks that have fallen victim to the lies and distortions of these well paid propagandist.
On the other hand, just two days ago (May 19) you cut off a caller who merely asked that you have more progressive guests on your show. You told that caller, who couldn't respond because you dumped his call, that you were all the "progressive" your audience needs and you think you do a fine job, thank you very much, of representing the progressive point of view.
That seemed like a fear based response to me.
FACEBOOK FOLK: Join the group - Polar Bears Against Palin
I clearly disagree with libertarianism because I’ve never met a libertarian who admits that the very complex marketplace we experience in this country evolved with the government’s help—for good or bad. Corporate charters, tax codes, regulation of stock exchanges, patents, copyrights, contract law, courts, etc. are creations of the very government that “free-market” libertarians deride. Is it perfect? Heck no. The purpose of government vis a vis the marketplace is supposed to be to create a level playing field so that large, medium, and small players have confidence to participate. The deeper, wider, more diverse, and more dynamic the marketplace is, the better.
The only free market that exists, as Thom has explained, is when two people exchange products or services (i.e., Farmer A exchanges his goat for Farmer B’s sheep). Not even money, issued by the government, could be exchanged. And no methods of regulated transportation or communications (i.e., trucks, public roads, phones, postal service) could be used . Now that may sound ridiculous. But it is truly the only way to have a transaction where the government has no part in making it happen. And our recognizing how government has evolved with the private sector and individuals to play a role (good or bad) in so many facets of our complex lives is important.
Of course, libertarians would argue that the private sector can do whatever government does better. Again, I clearly disagree. But that’s another discussion.
So when We the People (the government) want to level the marketplace for workers by allowing them to belong to unions in a fair and open way, without intimidation and delay tactics by employers and to bargain collectively, it’s no more interventionist than the myriad of government interventions that benefit other groups—mostly corporations. To be concerned about favoring workers and just ignore all the favoritism bestowed by the government for employers, or worse yet—just calling it the “free market” and not even acknowledging the government’s favoritism—is not, I believe, intellectually honest.
Some libertarians do acknowledge the favoritism, only they don’t call it that. It’s just a function of what is moral in a capitalistic society in their minds. Positive incentives are justly bestowed on the “producers” and the rabble need negative incentives to keep them in line. Then when you point out their classist bias, they start screaming “That’s class warfare!” But perpetuating the bias is class warfare by the privileged on everyone else. They want favoritism, AND they don’t want anyone to acknowledge it let alone call it favoritism. Can arrogance be any more willful than that?
Tom your show rips it up man! Makes a days work nice and good to the lunch hour.
Did Dick win? Dick is a ghost that breaths O2! His history should be visually tabbed in a bullet list every time one talks about the executive power he and the rest of the neo-con-artist have forced us to listen to on mainstream tv for these many years/decades. My brain wants a better world and a better nation, my two party trap Wall Street, K-Street Lobby gives me a good cop and a bad cop! A government gone bad a post modern industrial complex. HELP!!!!!!!!