Karl Rove’s hissy fit: “Offended” by Chrysler ad – Karl Rove – Salon.com

7 Feb

Now, Clint Eastwood is no Democrat – he voted for John McCain in 2008, has been a Republican for most of his life, and now describes himself as having “libertarian” leanings. It’s hard to imagine he’d lend his name to an openly and intentionally pro-Obama ad. Chrysler has denied any political motive behind the Eastwood ad.

The flap over the ad confirms the GOP’s serious branding problem: The problem for Rove and the rest of the GOP is that their party’s narrative has become relentlessly negative, pessimistic and uninspiring. They’ve left the language of optimism and resilience, higher ground and common ground, to the Democrats, and lately President Obama has grabbed every opportunity to employ that language.

via Karl Rove’s hissy fit: “Offended” by Chrysler ad – Karl Rove – Salon.com.

Tags:

Army Colonel Challenges Pentagon’s Afghanistan Reports – NYTimes.com

6 Feb

If the official reaction to Colonel Davis’s campaign has been subdued, it may be partly because he has recruited a few supporters among the war skeptics on Capitol Hill.

“For Colonel Davis to go out on a limb and help us to understand what’s happening on the ground, I have the greatest admiration for him,” said Representative Walter B. Jones, Republican of North Carolina, who has met with Colonel Davis twice and read his reports.

Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, one of four senators who met with Colonel Davis despite what he called “a lot of resistance from the Pentagon,” said the colonel was a valuable witness because his extensive travels and midlevel rank gave him access to a wide range of soldiers.

Moreover, Colonel Davis’s doubts about reports of progress in the war are widely shared, if not usually voiced in public by officers on duty.

via Army Colonel Challenges Pentagon’s Afghanistan Reports – NYTimes.com.

Tags: ,

Rocky Anderson: Questions Asked and Answered | We The People Reform Coalition

6 Feb

01 Is the Justice Party going to be conservative enough to take more votes away from Republicans than from Democrats?

Yes and no. In its present configuration the Justice Party is a centrist spoiler rather than a unifying hub for a Third Wave victory over the two-party tyranny. It will take votes, not many, from both parties. He’s a former Democrat, he may hurt the Democrats more than the Republicans.

Hop on over to We The People Reform Coalition for answers to these questions:

02  Are Ron Paul youth going to get involved once Ron not a winner on GOP side?           

03  Balanced budget amendment?           

04  Why do you endorse Rocky Anderson?           

05  Is JP more likely to succeed than the Reform Party?

via Rocky Anderson: Questions Asked and Answered | We The People Reform Coalition.

Tags: , ,

United States third party and independent presidential candidates, 2012 – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

5 Feb

The Wikipedia is keeping track of 3rd party candidates. Check out the candidates and let us know what you think. There’s a dozen or so so far.

This article contains lists of official and prospective third party and independent candidates associated with the 2012 United States presidential election.

“Third party” is a term that is commonly used in the United States to refer to political parties other than the two major parties, which are the Democratic Party and Republican Party. The term is used as innumerate shorthand for all such parties, or sometimes only the largest of them.

An independent candidate is one who runs for office with no formal party affiliation.

via United States third party and independent presidential candidates, 2012 – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Tags:

Yakuza labor structure formed base of nuclear industry – AJW by The Asahi Shimbun

5 Feb

Many jobs in the Japanese nuclear industry are controlled by Yakuza, Japanese gangsters.

Crime syndicates and illegal businesses flock to nuclear plants where workers toil under harsh conditions. But the problem does not stop there.

“The disguised subcontract has thrived at nuclear plants across Japan because the power utilities, which wish to save on personnel expenses, have turned a blind eye to the picture,” said Masahiko Yamamoto, a 54-year-old former nuclear plant worker in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, who is engaged in campaigns against nuclear power.

via Yakuza labor structure formed base of nuclear industry – AJW by The Asahi Shimbun.

Tags: ,

Europe Moves to Protect Online Privacy – NYTimes.com

5 Feb

The Netherlands is considering a bill that would require Internet users to consent to being tracked as they travel from Web site to Web site. And last month, the European Commission unveiled a sweeping new privacy law that would require Web companies to obtain explicit consent before using personal information, inform regulators and users in the event of a data breach and, most radical, empower a citizen of Europe to demand that his or her data be deleted forever.

“Europe has come to the conclusion that none of the companies can be trusted,” said Simon Davies, the director of the London-based nonprofit Privacy International. “The European Commission is responding to public demand. There is a growing mood of despondency about the privacy issue.”

Every European country has a privacy law, as do Canada, Australia and many Latin American countries. The United States remains a holdout: We have separate laws that protect our health records and financial information, and even one that keeps private what movies we rent. But there is no law that spells out the control and use of online data.

via Europe Moves to Protect Online Privacy – NYTimes.com.

Tags: , ,

Facebook Is Using You – NYTimes.com

5 Feb

In Europe, laws give people the right to know what data companies have about them, but that is not the case in the United States….

Ads that pop up on your screen might seem useful, or at worst, a nuisance. But they are much more than that. The bits and bytes about your life can easily be used against you. Whether you can obtain a job, credit or insurance can be based on your digital doppelgänger — and you may never know why you’ve been turned down.

Material mined online has been used against people battling for child custody or defending themselves in criminal cases. LexisNexis has a product called Accurint for Law Enforcement, which gives government agents information about what people do on social networks. The Internal Revenue Service searches Facebook and MySpace for evidence of tax evaders’ income and whereabouts, and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services has been known to scrutinize photos and posts to confirm family relationships or weed out sham marriages.

via Facebook Is Using You – NYTimes.com.

The architecture meltdown – Art in Crisis – Salon.com

5 Feb

But overall, the state of architecture reflects the larger story of the creative class in the 21stcentury: Security and artistic freedom exist only for those who are independently wealthy. There are heavy casualties at small independent companies from which corporations are somewhat shielded. The middle levels get hollowed out. Barriers to entry tighten. And there’s a lingering sense that even when the recession lifts, these industrywide problems will not abate. Record corporate profits, after all, have not led to a significant increase in design work or construction. They’re issues, of course, that increasingly face the broader middle class in the developed world as well.

We need  to create a society where creativity is available to all.

via The architecture meltdown – Art in Crisis – Salon.com.

Tags: ,

At 102%, His Tax Rate Takes the Cake – Common Sense – NYTimes.com

4 Feb

The rich themselves are some of the most distressed. “None of the dialogue about taxes has anything to do with fairness,” Mr. Ross lamented. “Certain rich people are paying way more than their fair share and other rich people are paying a lot less. I’d like to see a conversation take place along nonideological lines where everyone is asked to pay their fair share, where everyone makes some payment, even if it’s one dollar. Everyone I know is so disgusted. People aren’t stupid. They know what’s going on. At the end of the day, the system is broken.”

via At 102%, His Tax Rate Takes the Cake – Common Sense – NYTimes.com.

Tags:

Innovations in Light – NYTimes.com

3 Feb

Some fascinating stuff here about getting lighting without the overhead of the grid:

If you look at the market for solar lighting in Africa, you’ll be excused for thinking that you’re looking at the mobile phone market some 15 years ago. Both are leapfrog technologies — neither land lines nor the electrical grid is going to reach much of the continent, so let’s just skip that generation of technology and move to the next one. Like cellphones, solar lamps are getting cheaper, smaller, better. Both are life-changing, indispensable. And the market is enormous. Today, about 1.5 million people in Africa use solar lamps. That’s a huge number — but it’s less than 1 percent of the potential market. A fifth of the world’s population lives without electricity. Another large group of people do have access to electricity, but need an alternative because it is too expensive and power outages are daily events.

The problem isn’t finding the technology, it’s coming up with a business model that people can afford. Three examples are discussed.

via Innovations in Light – NYTimes.com.

Tags: ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →