I found this on Huffington Post but could not find a proper attribution.
Sunday, 28 December 2008
Thursday, 27 November 2008
Obama Family Walk The Walk On Thanksgiving
Video from an NBC local affiliate in Chicago of the soon to be first family:
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
Meteor Video (Western Canada)
This is video of a meteor visible from an area of western Canada in Saskachawan & Alberta provinces of about 450km diameter at about 17.30 local time near local sunset. Best guess mass was in range of 1-10 tons.
Saturday, 22 November 2008
President-Elect Obama's Second Video Weekly Address
Broadcast on radio and via internet video on 22.Nov.2008:
Wednesday, 19 November 2008
Monday, 17 November 2008
Saturday, 15 November 2008
Wednesday, 5 November 2008
President-Elect Barack Obama's Victory Speech
Grant's Park in Chicago about 23.30 EST(-5GMT):
I am near tears still this next day, overwhelmed by the joy of a renewed hope for this world I thought had disappeared from the world in the few years of my boyhood from 1963-1968 in which I saw Jack Kennedy gunned down in Dallas, Dr. King killed in Memphis, and Bobby Kennedy killed in LosAngeles. yes we can :)
I am near tears still this next day, overwhelmed by the joy of a renewed hope for this world I thought had disappeared from the world in the few years of my boyhood from 1963-1968 in which I saw Jack Kennedy gunned down in Dallas, Dr. King killed in Memphis, and Bobby Kennedy killed in LosAngeles. yes we can :)
Sunday, 2 November 2008
A Most Courageous Act By The Republican Mayor of San Diego, CA
The following video is amazingly poignant. In it the Republican Mayor of San Diego, CA decides to support a city council resolution supporting an amicus brief in favor of gay marriage in California. Please take the time to view this. There are truly some great Republicans left and this calms me, even on the verge of this historic Democratic election in which I strongly hope and believe Barack Obama will be chosen as the 44th President of the US.
Saturday, 1 November 2008
Thursday, 30 October 2008
Election Night 2008 (US) With Dan Rather On HDNET
My personal plans for next Tuesday night are to watch the election night return on HDNET. Dan Rather Reports hosts the coverage with my personal favorite "number's person" Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com. I'm probably showing my age but I trust Dan Rather SO much more than ANY major network news or even second tier cable network. CBS made a HUGE mistake imo when they dumped Mr. Rather for Katie Couric. Take a glace at the video preview below to get a sense of why I'll be viewing HDNET in this crucial time when the US selection of our 44th president is counted and made known to a very anxious nation and world.
North Carolina PLEASE Elect Kay Hagan
Kay Hagan has been and in the role of junior US Senator from North Carolina she will continue to truly serve the state's PEOPLE, not the REPUBLICAN party machine. Senator Elizabeth Dole doesn't even have her primary residence in NC, she lives in the Watergate Hotel in the DC area. She is neither a native of or truly seems to be very interested in the state of NC except now as she has begun to desperately revive a re-election she until very recently believed she could coast to. Now her desperation has gone truly over the top. Please watch the following advert for Ms. Hagan and vote for her on or before next Tuesday.
Wednesday, 29 October 2008
Saturday, 25 October 2008
Thursday, 23 October 2008
Friday, 17 October 2008
Monday, 6 October 2008
Wednesday, 1 October 2008
Wednesday, 24 September 2008
Monday, 22 September 2008
Wednesday, 17 September 2008
Tuesday, 16 September 2008
Senator Bernie Sanders (Independent-Socialist) Vermont
Senator Bernie Sanders from the floor of the US Senate today: 16.Sept.2008:
Thursday, 11 September 2008
Saturday, 9 August 2008
Sunday, 13 July 2008
Polls Before The Convention
For those of us avid political junkies it SO easy to get hung up on the day to day fluctuations in the two main daily tracking polls (Rassmussen and Gallup), and the state by state polls from quite a few competent agencies. I try to remind myself daily that such polling is quite nearly meaningless until both parties have had their respective nominating conventions. I am in the camp that firmly believe this election is all about Senator Obama meeting or exceeding a perceived "comfort" threshold with the US electorate akin to that of Reagan in 1980. If Obama does meet that threshold he is quite likely to cruise to a comfortable popular vote win and probably a spectacular electoral vote margin, if not then the "safe" McCain may well eke out a win despite the prevailing winds. God help us all if the US voting public cannot reach that comfort level or if something totally off-key and not pertinent distracts them. I honestly do not think this country will even resemble any more the "last, best hope on earth", which I truly love if it must endure another 4 years of neo-conservative rule.
Please do not fool yourselves, John McCain, image manipulation aside, is in every way that matters a more thorough and dangerous neo-conservative imo than Reagan or either Bush. The reason this must be true is because he has no core ideological position other than some amorphous notion of "America First and Foremost By Devine Destiny". It is true that both Bush'es and Reagan also shared that amorphous notion but quite differently all three came from similar ideologically fixed positions from which the voting public had fair warning and from which they pretty much governed. Most crucially none had anything like the military cache held by McCain to execute the "America... Devine Destiny" credo. With McCain my central fear is that voters may well be sold that McCain is a centrist with vast foreign policy experience and aversion to war that will keep us safe. Instead I believe it far more likely that he would make decisions of war and peace based on his perception of a Vietnam era US "weakness" never being repeated and not feel constrained to either seek or obtain the consent of the governed in making or prosecuting war in the Middle East and elsewhere. Let us face the fact that this is NOT the 1960' or 70's, and the world is in far graver and more dangerous peril in so many potential flashpoints that we cannot hope to see them one year let alone four in advance. Let us all hope that Senator Obama reaches that threshold and prevents this rogue McCain scenario from playing out as anything other than a mental exercise.
Please do not fool yourselves, John McCain, image manipulation aside, is in every way that matters a more thorough and dangerous neo-conservative imo than Reagan or either Bush. The reason this must be true is because he has no core ideological position other than some amorphous notion of "America First and Foremost By Devine Destiny". It is true that both Bush'es and Reagan also shared that amorphous notion but quite differently all three came from similar ideologically fixed positions from which the voting public had fair warning and from which they pretty much governed. Most crucially none had anything like the military cache held by McCain to execute the "America... Devine Destiny" credo. With McCain my central fear is that voters may well be sold that McCain is a centrist with vast foreign policy experience and aversion to war that will keep us safe. Instead I believe it far more likely that he would make decisions of war and peace based on his perception of a Vietnam era US "weakness" never being repeated and not feel constrained to either seek or obtain the consent of the governed in making or prosecuting war in the Middle East and elsewhere. Let us face the fact that this is NOT the 1960' or 70's, and the world is in far graver and more dangerous peril in so many potential flashpoints that we cannot hope to see them one year let alone four in advance. Let us all hope that Senator Obama reaches that threshold and prevents this rogue McCain scenario from playing out as anything other than a mental exercise.
Friday, 11 July 2008
This Is The General People
As I look at the quite extreme bashing of Senator Obama from bloggers on the left and the MSM over his FISA vote, his analysis of Iraq, his reactions to the US Supreme Court's decisions re: the DC gun law and the death penalty for child rapists it occurs to me that most of this criticism seems to DEMAND ideological purity from Obama that he never espoused and in fact has from the beginning summarily rejected. In fact he has made his candidacy quite transparently as much as ANY other factor on his own belief that he can and WILL transcend the blue-red divide and actually accomplish progressive goals as opposed to meeting anyone's score on ideological perfection. I personally applaud Senator Obama for each of these decisions especially with his being entirely aware most of these stances would create sharp critique from the left. Do I agree with Senator Obama's position on each of this set of issues or indeed of any broad set of issues? No. Definitely not. That said, if I were to wait for a candidate who DOES, I would very likely never support anyone and in this case my belief is that I would be sacrificing a potentially great US president in Obama upon my own vain altar of what is right. Thankfully I am not burdened by a belief that my opinions reflect the best possible position on any complex issue let alone across a group of complex issues. Perhaps the best of these, as an example, is that I do not believe and neither did Obama believe that the telecom's should have been granted immuntity on FISA. In reviewing Obama's statement of his decision to vote for the final bill after voting to strip immunity and failing with three seperate failed amendments was that his vote was quite reasonable in the vein of not holding the good hostage to the perfect. In sum I don't think Senator Obama has shifted, lurched or even moved to the center since the primaries. Rather he has been exactly what he has always claimed to be, a new type of candidate intent on changing the way both politics and government is practiced.
Lonnie Thomason
(retired) Engineer
Rochester, NY area
Lonnie Thomason
(retired) Engineer
Rochester, NY area
Monday, 30 June 2008
Monday, 23 June 2008
Sunday, 22 June 2008
Thursday, 19 June 2008
Tuesday, 17 June 2008
Monday, 16 June 2008
Thursday, 12 June 2008
The Meaning Of Life (Barak Obama)
Barack Obama Explains the Meaning of Life (from Jake Tapper--ABC News)
June 12, 2008 2:43 PM
At a town hall meeting in Kaukauna, Wisc., Thursday afternoon, amidst questions about health care and the economy, a young man said he had a question for Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, and Obama should "please be as intellectual or spiritual as you would like."
"Well this is a lot of pressure," Obama said to laugher.
"My question is: what does life mean to you?" the young man asked.
"Oh goodness," Obama said, a bit taken aback. "What does life mean to me?"
He stammered a bit as he contemplated the enormity of the query.
"Well, uh, I, uh…"
The crowd of 2,500 supporters at Kaukauna High School * laughed with apparent sympathy.
"I don't know where to start on a question like that," Obama said. "Let me just say a couple things. Right now what I think about most is my daughters who are 10 and 7," he said, referring to his daughters Malia and Sasha. "And not that I'm biased but they are perfect in all ways."
To the young man who asked the question, Obama said, "when I was your age, I thought life was all about me. And how do make my way in the world and how do I become successful and how do I get the things that I want. And right now life for me revolves around those two girls. And I think about what kind of a place am I leaving them."
And with that, came the able pivot.
"Michelle and I have been incredibly blessed," Obama said. "As long as God's looking over, my girls are going to be OK." They go to "great schools, will be able to afford college, are in good health and will be well cared for if they ever get sick.
But the country and the world they're living in, Obama said, needs work.
"Are they living in a county where there’s a huge gap between a few who are wealthy and a whole bunch of people who are struggling every day?" Obama asked. "Are they living in a county that is still divided by race?
"Are they living in a country where because they’re girls they don’t have as much opportunity as boys do?
"Are they living in a country where we are hated around the world because we don’t cooperate with other countries as effectively as we should? Are they living in a country where they are threatened by terrorism and a nuclear explosion could happen in a major American city? Are they living in a country in which because of a lack of sensible energy we are not only ransoming our future, but we’re also threatening the very livelihood of the planet?"
Obama continued, "what life means to me is that every day I wake up trying to figure out how can I secure their futures and the futures of all children, ...How can I make sure that we are giving a planet and a country to them that is better than the one we got? And, you know ,so I guess what I’ve discovered is that life doesn’t count for much unless you’re somehow giving yourself to something larger to yourself. And that’s part of my Christian faith. It’s also part of the reason I am running for president of the United States."
So.
That's what life means to him. In case you were wondering.
Tuesday, 20 May 2008
Friday, 22 February 2008
Wednesday, 20 February 2008
Monday, 21 January 2008
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