Honey, the bees have turned red. Not a note on colony collapse, but you might be surprised by your bees' behavior if there's a maraschino cherry factory within six miles.
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7:17 AM | Home (DISCLOSURE: I work for Abt SRBI. My company does polling. My opinions should not be construed as representing those of my employer.)
We interrupt your holiday weekend for this looming storm. Have you started to think about the interdependence of international economies and the potential snowball effects from Greece, Ireland, and Portugal?
September 11 supposedly "taught" us that the ocean's were no longer a sufficiently protective barrier, but there was plenty of evidence beforehand that we were vulnerable in other ways. Mexican pesos, the 1997 Asian currency crisis and so on.
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8:38 AM | Home (DISCLOSURE: I work for Abt SRBI. My company does polling. My opinions should not be construed as representing those of my employer.)
OK, so a man with a conceal and carry license was doing that C and C. OK, alright, so he was on a little creepy hunt for a woman he'd met online. But at least he wasn't sitting in a Planned Parenthood lot on purpose.
He's not a pro-lifer, okay? Just has a couple loose screws, and holds elected office. No biggie.
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6:52 PM | Home (DISCLOSURE: I work for Abt SRBI. My company does polling. My opinions should not be construed as representing those of my employer.)
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10:57 PM | Home (DISCLOSURE: I work for Abt SRBI. My company does polling. My opinions should not be construed as representing those of my employer.)
"I AM the government!" Even Tom Delay has a lot to be thankful for, although he may feel as if his list is a little shorter.
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10:22 PM | Home (DISCLOSURE: I work for Abt SRBI. My company does polling. My opinions should not be construed as representing those of my employer.)
It takes a special kind of willful ignorance to earn $32 million a year. I'm certain of this, because I don't think I'd be so good at willful ignorance that my media empire could gross $32 million a year. But Glenn Beck's another story entirely.
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8:46 PM | Home (DISCLOSURE: I work for Abt SRBI. My company does polling. My opinions should not be construed as representing those of my employer.)
More danger signs for the economy? Student debt. In a weak job market, how do we expect college grads to pay their loans? Not just "can they find jobs," but can they find jobs that make use of their degrees, and justify the education?
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10:35 PM | Home (DISCLOSURE: I work for Abt SRBI. My company does polling. My opinions should not be construed as representing those of my employer.)
GOP-skewed polls? Sure, if they don't call cell phones. Pew Research has released a new report which adds to the growing body of evidence that if a poll doesn't include cell phones, the results will likely be biased: towards the GOP.
People without land lines not only have different demographics, but they also have different lifestyles. Merely weighting the sample on demographics won't properly compensate.
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10:25 PM | Home (DISCLOSURE: I work for Abt SRBI. My company does polling. My opinions should not be construed as representing those of my employer.)
THIS is a better warning to the TSA than "Don't touch my junk." Go for it, TSA.
Your move, TSA. Mmmm.
(PS: Every time this song ends, I always think "Stronger than dirt.")
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9:24 PM | Home (DISCLOSURE: I work for Abt SRBI. My company does polling. My opinions should not be construed as representing those of my employer.)
Gates gives the GOP an opportunity to save face, if they want it. DefSec Gates is warning of the consequences if START isn't ratified. This follows the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staffs, Admiral Mike Mullen. With these two voices, Kyl can, shall we say, "revisit" (?) his opinion that START shouldn't be passed?
Interestingly, not only are Gates and Mullen providing the GOP the face-saving opportunity, they're also providing America with a litmus test (if any still need it) over whether the GOP is interested in progress or will hold to its interest in making Obama a failure.
Your move, Kyl. You know the stakes.
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4:57 PM | Home (DISCLOSURE: I work for Abt SRBI. My company does polling. My opinions should not be construed as representing those of my employer.)
What makes you think the GOP cares about you getting a job? Mitch McConnel already said the first priority is to make Obama a one-term President. And that means making sure the economy doesn't succeed. Why would you think the GOP would compromise?
They wanted to block Obama's every move when they were in a weaker position. (Remember DeMint's "Waterloo" remark?) Why would they be more co-operative now? Are you crazy?
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2:24 PM | Home (DISCLOSURE: I work for Abt SRBI. My company does polling. My opinions should not be construed as representing those of my employer.)
"For war and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barriers." In 1960, JFK sought to ensure that voters didn't lose sight of the issues confronting the nation by inordinately focusing on his religion:
While the so-called religious issue is necessarily and properly the chief topic here tonight, I want to emphasize from the outset that we have far more critical issues to face in the 1960 election: the spread of Communist influence, until it now festers 90 miles off the coast of Florida; the humiliating treatment of our president and vice president by those who no longer respect our power; the hungry children I saw in West Virginia; the old people who cannot pay their doctor bills; the families forced to give up their farms; an America with too many slums, with too few schools, and too late to the moon and outer space.
These are the real issues which should decide this campaign. And they are not religious issues -- for war and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barriers.
But because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected president, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured -- perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again not what kind of church I believe in -- for that should be important only to me -- but what kind of America I believe in.
I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.
And what else? JFK proceeded to an eloquent discussion of religious intolerance:
For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew -- or a Quaker or a Unitarian or a Baptist. It was Virginia's harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson's statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you -- until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.
Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end; where all men and all churches are treated as equal; where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice; where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind; and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.
That is the kind of America in which I believe. And it represents the kind of presidency in which I believe -- a great office that must neither be humbled by making it the instrument of any one religious group, nor tarnished by arbitrarily withholding its occupancy from the members of any one religious group. I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation, or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.
Now, you know I don't typically quote such large blocks. But there's a reason for doing so at this time. Because Sarah Palin seems to have glommed on one small bit of text, and the LA Times reports that in her new book...
Sarah Palin takes on popular culture, revives talk of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and finds fault with JFK's famous religion speech, saying he "seemed to want to run away" from his faith.
...Palin writes that she was taught as a child that JFK's speech reconciled religion and public service without compromising either. Now, she says, she's realized that Kennedy "essentially declared religion to be such a private matter that it was irrelevant to the kind of country we are."
Got that? Palin takes JFK's "hands off my religion!" and twists it into a rejection of the importance of faith. I'm not sure what else Palin says, but I have the sneaking suspicion that she doesn't explore whether Roman Catholic judges who hand down death sentences should resign.
I look forward to this book's publication, and more thorough discussion of its contents: America needs the discussion, America needs to better understand the implications of blurring the separation between church and state. For when it comes down to making laws, and enacting laws, on the basis of religious beliefs, then I think Red Lobster is going to lose a lot of business: no shrimp or lobster for you.
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10:08 AM | Home (DISCLOSURE: I work for Abt SRBI. My company does polling. My opinions should not be construed as representing those of my employer.)
