Clipmarks | earnric's Comments

Sarah Palin, a Friend of Mine

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 18:02:33 GMT

clipped by: dl211
clipper's remarks: Her rapid rise in politics is a direct result of her unwavering moral compass. Sarah makes her decisions based on one criterion: what’s the right thing to do? In 2003, Gov. Frank Murkowski offered her an appointment to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. (I advised her not to take the position. She ignored my advice, and took the job anyway.) Shortly after taking her seat on the commission, she noticed that one of her fellow commissioners, Randy Reudrich, was doing political business on state time. Reudrich was (and still is) chairman of the state Republican party. Randy controls the flow of money to Republican candidates.

Once a year all political appointees in Alaska are required to sign a conflict of interest statement. Part of the statement requires commissioners to report any violation by their colleagues. Sarah felt she had no choice but to tell the truth about Reudrich’s abuses, even though she would be turning in a fellow Republican. In the days following her all

Clip Source: frontpage.americandaughter.com

Sarah Palin, a Friend of Mine

People around the world are asking, “Who is Sarah Palin?” I thought you might appreciate an analysis from someone who has worked with John McCain’s pick for Vice President.

Before I wrote Why Men Hate Going to Church, I was a full-time television producer in Anchorage, Alaska. I did quite a bit of political consulting in election years. Sarah came to me in 2002 and asked me to produce media for her Lt. Governor campaign. I knew right away she was a different kind of politician. She was confident but not arrogant. She was down-home approachable, yet sophisticated. She seemed utterly uninterested in the trappings of power, yet ambitious to wield power for good. As cameras rolled for her first commercial, I knew that Sarah Palin was a gifted communicator.

Tags: palin, alaska

The Party's Over - Pat Buchanan

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 06:37:33 GMT

clipped by: dl211
clipper's remarks: A true conservative cherishes prudence and believes in fiscal responsibility, balanced budgets and a self-reliant republic. He believes in saving for retirement and a rainy day, in deferred gratification, in not buying on credit what you cannot afford, in living within your means.

Is that really what got Wall Street and us into this mess -- that we followed too religiously the gospel of Robert Taft and Russell Kirk?

"Government must save us!" cries the left, as ever. Yet, who got us into this mess if not the government -- the Fed with its easy money, Bush with his profligate spending, and Congress and the SEC by liberating Wall Street and failing to step in and stop the drunken orgy?

For years, we Americans have spent more than we earned. We save nothing. Credit card debt, consumer debt, auto debt, mortgage debt, corporate debt -- all are at record levels. And with pensions and savings being wiped out, much of that debt will never be repaid.

Clip Source: www.humanevents.com

The Crash of 2008, which is now wiping out trillions of dollars of our people's wealth, is, like the Crash of 1929, likely to mark the end of one era and the onset of another.

The new era will see a more sober and much diminished America. The "Omnipower" and "Indispensable Nation" we heard about in all the hubris and braggadocio following our Cold War victory is history.

Seizing on the crisis, the left says we are witnessing the failure of market economics, a failure of conservatism.

This is nonsense. What we are witnessing is the collapse of Gordon Gecko ("Greed Is Good!") capitalism. What we are witnessing is what happens to a prodigal nation that ignores history, and forgets and abandons the philosophy and principles that made it great.

Tags: economy, buchanan

Republican Hypocrisy... again!

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 23:55:03 GMT

clipped by: earnric
clipper's remarks: Whether or not they got the $ amount right doesn't really matter... What matters is that if you believe the current republican presidential candidate is "less elitist" than the dem -- well, I have some swamp land I'd like to sell you.

Clip Source: www.vanityfair.com

Cindy McCain's $300,000 Outfit

One of the persistent memes in the Republican line of attack against Barack Obama is the notion that he is an elitist, whereas the G.O.P. represent real working Americans like Levi “F-in’ Redneck” Johnston.

Cindy McCain
Oscar de la Renta dress: $3,000
Chanel J12 White Ceramic Watch: $4,500
Three-carat diamond earrings: $280,000
Four-strand pearl necklace: $11,000–$25,000
Shoes, designer unknown: $600
Total: Between $299,100 and $313,100

Tags: republicans, hypocrisy, elitism

Republican Hypocrisy... again!

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 23:55:03 GMT

Clip Source: www.vanityfair.com

Cindy McCain's $300,000 Outfit

Tags: republicans, hypocrisy, elitism

Republican Hypocrisy... again!

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 23:55:03 GMT

Clip Source: www.vanityfair.com

Cindy McCain's $300,000 Outfit

Tags: republicans, hypocrisy, elitism

The perfect quote...

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 18:53:33 GMT

clipped by: earnric

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

McCain, who told the Wall Street Journal in March that "I'm always for less regulation," now asks voters to believe he will be a champion of tough, unblinking oversight. He's shocked and outraged that Wall Street's preening Masters of the Universe threw a drunken toga party and smashed all the furniture -- but he helped buy the beer and told the cops to look the other way.

Tags: republicans, deregulation, financial mess

Wall Street crisis is culmination of 28 years of deregulation

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 11:30:22 GMT

clipped by: bbittner

Clip Source: www.mcclatchydc.com

WASHINGTON — No one cog in the federal government's machine of financial regulation let down the country by failing to prevent the latest shakeout on Wall Street. The entire system did.

"They just haven't done a particularly good job," said James Barth, a senior finance fellow at the Milken Institute, a nonpartisan research group based in Los Angeles.

Kathleen Day, a spokeswoman for the Center for Responsible Lending, a consumer-oriented research group, explained the regulatory lapses more starkly: "The job of regulators is that when the party's in full swing, make sure the partygoers drink responsibly," she said. "Instead, they let everyone drink as much as they wanted and then handed them the car keys."

Are we really that stupid?

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 17:41:15 GMT

clipped by: earnric
clipper's remarks: Republican 'deregulation mania' is responsible for the current financial crisis... Why would we want to put these same ideologue BACK in the white house?

Clip Source: www.truthdig.com

John McCain has been a master of the special-interest giveaways to Wall Street that enabled this meltdown. He voted for abolishing all of the significant rules put in place at the time of the Great Depression designed to prevent a repeat. The two main bills accomplishing that, bills which McCain enthusiastically supported, were the Commodity Futures Modernization Act and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.

Tags: government, stupidity, republicans, crisis

State religion...

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 22:15:39 GMT

clipped by: earnric
clipper's remarks: Why is the state authorizing a sectarian license plate?

I hope the Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Atheists all protest this one and take the state to court.

Legislatures have more important stuff to do than this...

Clip Source: thinkprogress.org

Yesterday, South Carolina became the first state to offer its drivers vanity license plates featuring a cross over a stained-glass windows and the words “I Believe.” While most of the other 200 specialty plates cost around $70 — with proceeds going to the sponsoring organization — the “I Believe” plates will cost only $4 to $6, “just enough to reimburse the state for the cost to produce the plate.” Dr. T. Jeremey Gunn, director of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, said the plates might be unconstitutional:

The whole issue here is that people are trying to get the state to endorse their religion, and that’s wrong. It’s almost as if there’s insufficient support, and they have to go to the state to get it.

Both the ACLU and the American Jewish Congress are considering challenging the plates in court.

Tags: religion

So you think christianity is crazy?

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 23:47:15 GMT

clipped by: earnric
clipper's remarks: Give the Quaran and Islam a try... Kafir girl reads and comments on the book so you don't have too!

She also adds some family "insights" to keep things moving... Funny stuff (it so many people didn't take this crap seriously)

Clip Source: kafirgirl.wordpress.com

Hadith are the everyday practices and traditions from Mohammed’s life, which were transmitted orally and written down much later. Boy, that sounds reputable, doesn’t it? They cover everything from dream interpretation to gardening to dinner table etiquette. I’ve met some Muslims who take hadith very seriously, and others who think hadith are total bullshit. Most of all, though, I’ve met Muslims who cherry pick the best advice and ignore the shit that makes Mohammed look like batshitass crazy.

My family falls into that last category for the most part, but my grandmother was all about the hadith. Or at least the hadith as she knew them. It drove me nuts when she would chastise my left-handed cousin with, “The prophet says you should never eat with your left hand!” Why not, grandma? “It’s the hand of the devil!” Well, fuck. All this time I thought it belonged to me. There were many hadith she would pull out of her ass, but this one was her absolute favorite.

Tags: islam, craziness

Baptists on the decline...

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 01:00:15 GMT

clipped by: earnric
clipper's remarks: could it be...

...that people are waking up to the fact that religion is based on superstition and the desire of one group of people to control others?

When you can say "god wants you to do this" -- and you believe in god -- it makes it easy.

Clip Source: www.azcentral.com

But with membership slightly down last year, and flat for the past five, Southern Baptists face a growing anxiety about their future as they gather for their annual meeting Tuesday in Indianapolis.

"We have peaked," Southern Baptist statistician Ed Stetzer wrote in an online commentary on the latest statistics from 2007. "For now, Southern Baptists are a denomination in decline."

Tags: religion

Baptists on the decline...

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 01:00:15 GMT

Clip Source: www.azcentral.com

But with membership slightly down last year, and flat for the past five, Southern Baptists face a growing anxiety about their future as they gather for their annual meeting Tuesday in Indianapolis.

"We have peaked," Southern Baptist statistician Ed Stetzer wrote in an online commentary on the latest statistics from 2007. "For now, Southern Baptists are a denomination in decline."

Tags: religion

Baptists on the decline...

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 01:00:15 GMT

Clip Source: www.azcentral.com

But with membership slightly down last year, and flat for the past five, Southern Baptists face a growing anxiety about their future as they gather for their annual meeting Tuesday in Indianapolis.

"We have peaked," Southern Baptist statistician Ed Stetzer wrote in an online commentary on the latest statistics from 2007. "For now, Southern Baptists are a denomination in decline."

Tags: religion

Iran is no threat unless Bush makes it one

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 22:23:35 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Attack on Iran will quash democracy movement

Clip Source: www.payvand.com

Iran Is No Threat, Unless Bush Makes It One

Worst of all, military attacks on Iran will only consolidate the hardliners' grip on Iran, just when economic problems and political repression are shaking the foundations of their power. President Ahmadinejad is in deep trouble at home, even among his own base. The vast majority of Iran's urban population, and in particular its university students, despise him for his failed economic policies, political repression, and the danger that his hollow rhetoric has created for Iran's national security.

In April 2005, when the reformist Mohammad Khatami was still president, Iran made a comprehensive proposal to the U.S., offering to enter serious negotiations and putting all the important issues on the table. The offer was never taken seriously.

given the deep unpopularity of the hardliners, the absence of an external threat to Iran's national security would make it much easier for democratic groups to push for reforms

Tags: iran

Biblical nonsense...

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:18:05 GMT

clipped by: earnric
clipper's remarks: More from the wests favorite story-teller.. Jehovah!

Clip Source: dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com