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I've got three Google Voice invites available. Anyone interested? Leave your email address in comments (screened, of course.)

I've started using GV recently, and I love it. It's a great voice mail management application.

Originally posted at http://wyldraven.dreamwidth.org/542867.html

Current Mood: aggravated

lasarina's car blew the engine a couple of weeks ago. It's engine is being replaced next week. ( You will never guess what happened this morning. )

Originally posted at http://wyldraven.dreamwidth.org/542553.html

I received my notification that my paid account was due for renewal in just under two weeks. ( Read more... )

Originally posted at http://wyldraven.dreamwidth.org/542031.html

A newly-rephrased version of the Golden Rule. - Check it out.
With thanks to velvetpage

Originally posted at http://wyldraven.dreamwidth.org/539189.html

The Obama justice system - Glenn Greenwald

Highlighting not mine.
[...] Spencer Ackerman yesterday attended a Senate hearing at which the DOD's General Counsel, Jeh Johnson, testified.  As Ackerman highlighted, Johnson actually said that even for those detainees to whom the Obama administration deigns to give a real trial in a real court, the President has the power to continue to imprison them indefinitely even if they are acquitted at their trial.  About this assertion of "presidential post-acquittal detention power" -- an Orwellian term (and a Kafka-esque concept) that should send shivers down the spine of anyone who cares at all about the most basic liberties -- Ackerman wrote, with some understatement, that it "moved the Obama administration into new territory from a civil liberties perspective."
Law professor Jonathan Turley was more blunt:  "The Obama Administration continues its retention and expansion of abusive Bush policies — now clearly Obama policies on indefinite detention." [...]

I just made a birthday wish for my 51st birthday! Click here (Facebook Causes) to find out what it is.

Morality and Economics « Texas Freedom Network

Texas clearly doesn’t have a monopoly on right-wing nonsense. ( At least we aren't alone... )

Current Mood: angry

The suppressed fact: deaths by U.S. torture - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

( Answer, such as we know it, here... )

Obama's trail of broken promises

The prophet of hope now doesn't even bother with explanations when he reneges on his campaign pledges.

[...] We once respected democracy by at least demanding explanations -- however weak -- for unfulfilled promises. Then we became a country whose scorched-earth campaigns against flip-flopping desensitized us to reversals. Now, we don't flinch when our president appears tickled that a few poor souls still expect politicians to fulfill promises and justify broken ones. [...]

In regards to the murder of Dr. George Tiller, apocalypsos responds much better than I could ever hope to do. So go read what she said, and know that I completely agree with her.

Allow me to add that if ever we reach the point where the "War on Terror" has any real meaning, then people like Scott P. Roeder will be treated as terrorists.

ETA: Abortion Doctor Murder Suspect: The Far-Right Connections | Mother Jones

Notre Dame's stand against Catholic fundamentalism | Salon

President Obama goes to the University of Notre Dame this Sunday to deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree, the ninth U.S. president to be so honored. The event has stirred up a hornet's nest of conservative Catholics, with more than 40 bishops objecting, and hundreds of thousands of Catholics signing petitions in protest. In the words of South Bend's Bishop John M. D'Arcy, the complaint boils down to President Obama's "long-stated unwillingness to hold human life as sacred." Notre Dame, the bishop charged, has chosen "prestige over truth." [...]

Current Mood: impressed

Drug-fueled madness! | Salon
Our nation's narcotics policy, that is. But there's good news as Hillary Clinton and Sen. Jim Webb take baby steps toward sanity.

[...] Though President Barack Obama childishly laughed at a question about legalization during his recent town hall meeting, his government implicitly admits that marijuana is safer than light beer. Indeed, as federal agencies acknowledge alcohol's key role in deadly illnesses and domestic violence, their latest anti-pot fear mongering is an ad campaign insisting -- I kid you not -- that marijuana is dangerous because it makes people zone out on their couches and diminishes video-gaming skills.

(This is your government on drugs: Cirrhosis and angry tank-topped lushes beating their wives are more acceptable risks than stoners sitting in their basements ineptly playing "Halo." ... Any questions?) [...]

A major difference between conservatives and progressives

The Right marched in uncritical, creepy devotion to Bush for the first six years of his presidency. The Left has been leading the way in criticizing Obama when warranted.

Current Mood: contemplative

The virtues of public anger and the need for more

We are not suffering from an excess of citizen outrage, but rather, from a lack of it

( Read more... )

To close, let me quote Greenwald again:

A political establishment that can function without any fear of the citizenry will inevitably trample on its interests. That is what has been happening more than anything else. And it is why we need far more public outrage, and fear of that outrage more deeply implanted in the minds of our political and financial elites.

Current Mood: quixotic

I'm not sure if you've heard, but there's a movement of citizens inspired by the presidential campaign who are deciding the top 10 ideas for how they think the Obama administration should change America. It's called "Ideas for Change in America," and it's being run by Change.org.

One idea is titled: Free Single Payer Health Care. I thought you might be interested in getting involved and recommend you check it out. You can read more and vote for the idea by clicking the following link:

http://www.change.org/ideas/view/free_single_payer_health_care

The top 10 ideas are going to be presented to the Obama administration at an event at the National Press Club in Washington, DC next week and will be supported by a national lobbying campaign run by Change.org in partnership with leading nonprofits after the Presidential Inauguration. So each idea has a real chance at becoming policy.

Thanks for the help!

Current Mood: blah

W. and the damage done

President Bush inherited a peaceful, prosperous America. As he exits, Salon consults experts in seven fields to try to assess the devastation.

Current Mood: apathetic

LiveJournal: The Russian Bear Slashes a Social Network

The bubble in social networking has burst, decisively. LiveJournal, the San Francisco-based arm of Sup, a Russian Internet startup, has cut about 20 of 28 employees — and offered them no severance, we're told.

liz_marcs

Current Mood: aggravated

From MoveOn.Org:

You've probably heard about how Wall Street financier Bernard Madoff scammed investors out of at least $50 billion.

But you may not have heard that his victims included the foundations that support some really important progressive organizations. Groups that fight for human rights, fair elections and racial justice are getting hit hard—just in time for the holidays. [...]

( Read more... )

Current Mood: hopeful

At House Party on Health Care, the Diagnosis Is: It’s Broken

When a dozen consumers gathered over the weekend to discuss health care at the behest of President-elect Barack Obama, they quickly agreed on one point: they despise health insurance companies.

( More excerpts )

lasarina