Kelvin Mace
Kelvin Mace's JournalPolice in every school? $19.8 billion a year please!
The NRA's suggestion is stupid for a number of reasons, but here is the one to shut down conservatives:
There are roughly 99,000 public schools in America
http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/pub_overview.asp
Figure at least four officers per school at $50,000 per officer per year:
(4 x $50,000) x 99000 = $19,800,000,000
Negotiation Obama Style
The time: 2:10 AM, April 15, 1912Place: Deck of the RMS Titanic, in the middle of the North Atlantic
Capt. Boehner (The icy waters of lapping at his feet): Damn it man, when are you and your people going to fix this problem?
First Officer Obama: Well, sir, your people built the ship, told us it couldn't sink, fought regulations about carrying more life boats as "burdensome government regulation" then you sailed us through iceberg-infested waters at night, at top speed, in order to facilitate the betting pool for the First Class passengers.
Capt. Boehner: That's so typical of you, inciting class warfare and rooting for the icebergs to win. I bet you are secretly an iceberg.
First Officer Obama: With respect sir, now is not the time for that argument.
Sir Rupert Murdoch: Now is ALWAYS the time for that argument!
First Officer Obama: Why is he on the bridge?
Capt. Boehner: Important business. He's hacking the telegraph wires so he can spy on the other passengers.
First Officer Obama: Sir, about the watery grave we are about to enter...
Lady Bachmann: The ship is NOT sinking. Inhaling water does NOT cause drowning. My husband says we can PRAY the iceberg away.
First Officer Obama: Why is SHE on the bridge.
Capt. Boehner: She's my science officer, we wanted to give her your job, but even our crazy board of directors wouldn't buy it.
First Officer Obama: Sir, with respect, what are we going to do? The passengers are starting to talk.
Capt. Boehner: What we need is another iceberg. Fetch me another iceberg! We'll strap the ship to that iceberg, then float to New York.
First Officer Obama: Sounds dubious sir, perhaps we could...
Capt. Boehner: NO! The answer to any suggestion you have is NO, and always will be NO! Why won't you compromise like I do?
First Officer Obama: Well, I guess we could throw all the Third Class passengers overboard, and that would make the ship lighter, and she would sink slower, giving us more time to find another iceberg.
Capt. Boehner: Well, I don't know, it is an idea YOU came up with, so my instinct is to say "NO!"
First Officer Obama: What if I agreed to throw Paul Krugman and all the other people critical of your crazy orders and my willingness to follow them overboard, along with the Third Class passengers?
Capt. Boehner: Throw in the Second Class passengers and punch holes in the remaining life boats, and you got a deal.
First Officer Obama: Done!
Capt. Boehner: Carry on!
First Officer Obama: Uh-hemm, Sir?
Capt. Boehner: What now, boy?
First Officer Obama: (Bristling) I am the First Officer, not a "boy".
Capt. Boehner: Yeah, sure. What was it you wanted, can't you see I am busy sinking this ship?
First Officer Obama: It's about our compromise deal, sir. You get another iceberg, I agreed to help you keep the ship afloat by throwing off all the Second and Third Class passengers, plus I promised to punch holes in the remaining life boats. Don't I get something in return?
Capt. Boehner: Well, it goes against my instincts to give you anything, but here, take this.
First Officer Obama: What is this, sir?
Capt. Boehner: It is a Third Class ticket for the Lusitania, and my personal promise that should that ship sink, I will give you and the rest of the Second and Third Class passengers your choice of colors, when we are passing out the lead-lined life jackets.
First Officer Obama: Oh, thank you, sir. I'll have the ship's officers go break the news to the Second and Third Class passengers.
20 minutes later the ship's officers are pushing Second and Third Class passengers over the side as fast as they can while passengers "whine"
Passengers: This is the most asinine solution to a problem ever. You are taking a disaster you and the First Class passengers caused, and escalating it to a catastrophic disaster, and adding cold-blooded murder.
Chief Steward Pelosi: I ain't murdering no one. It is up to you whether you inhale the water or not. This is certainly not the deal I would have hoped for, but it was the best deal we could get under the circumstances.
Passengers: Easy for you to say, you have a life boat.
Chief Steward Pelosi: Hey, I feel your pain . Quit your whining, and start treading water.
Passengers: The water is 38 degrees, we'll be dead in ten minutes.
Chief Steward Pelosi: There you go again, letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Look, I promise, you'll get a better deal next time. We'll really go to the mat for you the next time this happens.
Passengers: Duh! Drowning/freezing to death over here! There is no next time for us. Besides, what makes you think you'll still have jobs on the next ship?
Chief Steward Pelosi: Well, who else do you have to help you? We might leave you to drown in frigid North Atlantic waters, but those other guys will knife you repeatedly, then toss you into shark-infested waters in the South Pacific.
Passengers: Not much of a difference, is it?
Chief Steward Pelosi: All the difference in the world. Before murdering you, we promise not to. The other guys won't promise not to, while murdering you.
Passengers: How will you sleep at night?
Chief Steward Pelosi: Peacefully! On the huge piles of cash given to us by the First Class passengers.
Sam Donaldson arrested on suspicion of DUI
Source: San Jose Mercury News
Sam Donaldson, the veteran ABC newsman and political correspondent, was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence earlier this month in Delaware.
Donaldson reportedly failed a field sobriety test and was arrested. He was taken to a nearby police station where he was booked and eventually released. He was reportedly very cooperative.
Read more: http://www.mercurynews.com/entertainment/ci_22223816/hicks-sam-donaldson-arrested-suspicion-dui
You'd think at his age he'd know better, but he does come from that generation where DUI was no big thing.
"I have gone at least halfway in meeting some of the Republican concerns."
Obama's own words.
Despite winning the election, despite there being NO reason to give the GOP anything, Obama gave into his bi-partisan fetish and moved to the right HARD.
He just rescued the GOP from ignominious defeat by granting legitimacy to their demands by going "halfway".
Here's is my prediction of the deal:
1) GOP will get no tax increase up to $1 million.
2) GOP will get chained CPI cuts for Social Security.
3) Many people board will tell me Obama didn't cave, or make a bad deal, or that the "perfect is the enemy of the good" and the "compromise" was reasonable.
Track Palin files for divorce
Source: KFMB News, San Diego
Track Palin, the eldest son of former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, is splitting from wife Britta Hanson, TMZ reports.
The couple filed their divorce documents jointly in Alaska, which under state law means the two have already settled property and custody issues, including child support.
<strong>Track, 23, and Britta married in May 2011. The high school sweethearts welcomed daughter Kyla three months later.
Read more: http://www.cbs8.com/story/20335487/track-palin-files-for-divorce
Pre-marital sex and pregnancy seem to be a pattern with the Palin Clan.
Man Gets Romney 'R' Tattooed On His Face
Source: ABC News
Some say that campaign ads are getting just ridiculous. But now it's taken a turn to the truly bizarre. An Indiana man has auctioned off space on the side of his head, where he tattooed Mitt Romney's presidential campaign "R" logo in a 5-by-2-inch spot for a bid of $15, 000.
Eric Hartsburg posted the eBay listing in August, and told ABC News that he was paid $15,000 by a Republican eBay user, who preferred to remain anonymous, to get the Romney logo permanently inked on the side of his head. Hartsburg, who is an Indiana native, told ABC News that he agreed because the tattoo was something that he could live with.
http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/t2x1Amqk9J2HfQDSpFzUew--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9aW5zZXQ7aD0zNjA7cT03OTt3PTY0MA--/
Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/man-gets-romney-r-tattooed-face-201007022--abc-news-politics.html
The stoopid is strong in this one.
Quick! How many aircraft carriers are currently deployed by all the world's navies?
How many carriers does China have?
How about Russia?
France?
The UK?
The U.S.?
Actually how many countries even have aircraft carriers?
Don't peek. Write down you guesses
Total number of carriers deployed: 31
Deployed by China: 1
Deployed by Russia: 1
Deployed by France: 1
Deployed by the U.K.: 2
Deployed by the U.S.: 20
Nations with aircraft carriers: 10
Carriers are the most powerful, and most expensive means of projecting military might into a region, and the U.S. has twice as many as the rest of the world combined, and ten times as many as our rivals.
Keep these numbers in mind when anyone brings up the canard that the U.S. Navy is somehow in decline.
The other gaping hole in Mourdock's logic
As vile as Mourdock's statement is, it seems he is being granted a pass by his GOP brethren through the simple mechanism of twisting the very definition of words and their context out of this space/time continuum into a completely new dimension.
But, even if we were to accept this "clarification" as logically coherent, there is still an even bigger psycho than Mourdock in the room: Mourdock's "God of peace".
Let's go back to the instant replay of the original foul, shall we?
"The only exception I have to have an abortion is in that case of the life of the mother," Mourdock said. "I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God and I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape that it is something God intended to happen."
If life is a "gift from God", then that would mean that "God" creates some life with the intent of killing women. Mourdock accepts the need for abortion when the mother's life is at risk, oblivious to the fact that his "God" willfully allowed a pregnancy to happen so as to place the mother in a position of choosing between her own life or that of her child.
Aside from being something that only a sadistic psychopath would do, it is logically incompatible with Mourdock's reasons for allowing abortion in this instance.
The unwilling rape victim was given the unwanted "gift" of pregnancy, and this gift may not be revoked. However, the wanted, but fatal "gift" given to to the willing mother may be refused?
Huh?
It would seem to me that if an unwilling rape victim may not refuse the "gift", a woman who wanted the "gift" has ZERO grounds for refusal. After all, she set about getting pregnant fully aware of the risks, with the express intent of becoming pregnant.
If we accept Mourdock's rational, then we can only conclude that Mourdock's "God" is truly a malevolent entity. After all, this "God" is prepared to kill women outright, which Mourdock makes allowances for, while not making allowances for women his "God" is prepared to victimize in a less than lethal manner.
Actually, the more we examine the man's logic, the more obvious it becomes that Mourdock is a religiously insane, misogynistic asshole.
Yeah, that is the far more reasonable conclusion.
New owners of voting machine company Hart-Intercivic have close Romney ties
As noted in other posts, H.I.G. Capital, LLC, a private equity firm stuffed full of Romney croniesm bought voting machine company Hart-Intercivic in July 2011. This has has raised the old spectre of dodgy computer code and stolen elections. A few issues to keep in mind going forward:
1) According to the Ohio SoS site, H-I equipment is only used in two counties, Williams and Hamilton. I am trying to find out which counties use H-I equipment in Colorado.
2) Despite much discussion about "rigging" an election, the easiest way to have an effect on an election is to control the number and deployment of functional voting machines. Keep replacement/backup equipment in short supply, then controlling what precinct gets replacements is easier to manage than diddling the code. Also, much harder to prove tampering short of a whistleblower or a confession.
3) No reasonable person can view control of a voting machine company by political partisans as anything short of improper.
4) The quickest way to destroy faith in elections is to have situations like this.
5) Until voting machines are afforded that same level of security as slot machines in Las Vegas, we cannot trust them without a LOT of scrutiny.
6) No voting process which lacks a tangible ballot is acceptable.
A few points about my experiences on this issue (since it has been a while since I posted on this topic):
I have done a LOT of work on e-voting activism over the years starting with the Diebold fiasco starting back in 2002. For those who wish to bother and check my bona fides, I served on the NC Select Committee on Electronic Voting in 2005 which helped draft one of the toughest e-voting laws in the nation. I WAS associated with Bev Harris back in the day, but haven't been since 2004. I coined the term "black box voting". While I view paperless voting as a major threat to transparent and accurate elections, I do NOT subscribe to the numerous theories out on the net that various elections were stolen using touch screen voting machines (Diebold's or anyone elses). I am a hard facts kind of guy with a computer hardware/software background. In my view, there is plenty of hard evidence to invalidate the use of ANY paperless voting system without resorting to skullduggery. That said, the use of a voting system without tangible ballots makes skullduggery easier.
One thing I have told many election officials and voting machine execs over the years is constant: If you don't want to be inundated with conspiracy theories about criminal misconduct and stolen elections, do not behave in a manner which fuels such speculation.
Do not, for example, have the CEO of your company head up the GOP election efforts and write letters telling people "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president [Bush]" when you make voting machines used in that same election. Do not hold secret meetings with other voting machine makers where you conspire to undermine independent testing of voting machines.
Links:
Ownership of Hart-Intercivic:
http://www.thedailydolt.com/2012/10/10/former-bain-employees-own-voting-machine-company-used-in-swing-states/
Ohio SoS:
http://www.sos.state.oh.us/SOS/Upload/elections/votingsystems.aspx?page=25056
Colorado relaxing voting machine security:
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/12/colorado-voting-machine-security
Cross-posted from Politics 2012
Reality check on Hart-Intercivic voting machine company and its owndership by Romney partisans
As noted in other posts, H.I.G. Capital, LLC, a private equity firm stuffed full of Romney croniesm bought voting machine company Hart-Intercivic in July 2011. This has has raised the old spectre of dodgy computer code and stolen elections. A few issues to keep in mind going forward:
1) According to the Ohio SoS site, H-I equipment is only used in two counties, Williams and Hamilton. I am trying to find out which counties use H-I equipment in Colorado.
2) Despite much discussion about "rigging" an election, the easiest way to have an effect on an election is to control the number and deployment of functional voting machines. Keep replacement/backup equipment in short supply, then controlling what precinct gets replacements is easier to manage than diddling the code. Also, much harder to prove tampering short of a whistleblower or a confession.
3) No reasonable person can view control of a voting machine company by political partisans as anything short of improper.
4) The quickest way to destroy faith in elections is to have situations like this.
5) Until voting machines are afforded that same level of security as slot machines in Las Vegas, we cannot trust them without a LOT of scrutiny.
6) No voting process which lacks a tangible ballot is acceptable.
Links:
Ownership of Hart-Intercivic:
http://www.thedailydolt.com/2012/10/10/former-bain-employees-own-voting-machine-company-used-in-swing-states/
Ohio SoS:
http://www.sos.state.oh.us/SOS/Upload/elections/votingsystems.aspx?page=25056
Colorado relaxing voting machine security:
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2011/12/colorado-voting-machine-security
And an oldie from my old site on how Hart-Intercivic organized a secret meeting to fight e-voting activists and undermine independent machine certification:
http://blackboxvoting.com/s9/index.php?/archives/177-Secret-meeting-of-the-Black-Box-Yakuza.html
Cross posted to Politics 2012
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Member since: 2003 before July 6th
Number of posts: 17,469