Saturday, October 9, 2010
Monday, October 4, 2010
Hold On Just One Minute
Democrats Close the Gap
A new Rasmussen survey shows Republicans leading Democrats in the generic congressional ballot by just three points, 45% to 42% -- the smallest gap between parties in roughly a year.
It is a testament to our volatile politics these days, we have Rasmussen, a notorious GOP leaning polster showing democrats doing better, and Gallup still has some likely voter scenarios showing them doing badly.
Rasmussen, in my experience, is a very good polster in the last month or so before an election, when their reputation is on the line for being close to the final outcome. Not so much other times, when they give republicans better and dubious numbers.
So I will take this as a good sign that democrats are deciding in larger numbers to go vote. Probably for several reasons, but I suspect, from all the press and polling claiming the repubs will win back congress. They will still lose seat, no matter, but maybe not a wipeout shifting control of congress, or one chamber to the wingnuts.
A new Rasmussen survey shows Republicans leading Democrats in the generic congressional ballot by just three points, 45% to 42% -- the smallest gap between parties in roughly a year.
It is a testament to our volatile politics these days, we have Rasmussen, a notorious GOP leaning polster showing democrats doing better, and Gallup still has some likely voter scenarios showing them doing badly.
Rasmussen, in my experience, is a very good polster in the last month or so before an election, when their reputation is on the line for being close to the final outcome. Not so much other times, when they give republicans better and dubious numbers.
So I will take this as a good sign that democrats are deciding in larger numbers to go vote. Probably for several reasons, but I suspect, from all the press and polling claiming the repubs will win back congress. They will still lose seat, no matter, but maybe not a wipeout shifting control of congress, or one chamber to the wingnuts.
Christine Odonnell's "I"m not a witch ad"
I am starting to like this woman. Not for the US Senate, but for the comic self parody for someone so young.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
It's All About the Bidness
A new trend is starting of cities and counties contracting to private companies to run formerly public libraries. Ordinary citizens are rebelling at the practice in several California cities, and others around the country. fearful that a trusted source of community cohesion is being coopted by the profit model.
It should be obvious that yes, a service like a library is held so central to a place it should not be entrusted to a profit-driven contractor. There are several reasons why this is a bad idea, and among them is certainly a sense of community free from the competitive wrangling people do during their work lives. But much more obvious is the library being a source, and sometimes a primary source of objective information, free from possible, or probable ideological corruption of information. Which is rampant and increasing as conservation alternate realities are on the rise to install right wing dogma in government and about everywhere else. Such as the war on science and substituting religious concepts and morality that are bible based and highly subjective. The smearing of the science of evolution is a prime example of this.
But mostly for me, it is the ethos of capitalism and profit worship above all else, in service to wealth and power becoming the first value leading this country into fear and ignorance of other values, such as art and literature and the like, that is most alarming. This God of Profit almost always is followed by other right wing misinformation contrived to dumb down our national reality and discourse, and needs to remain in the realm of the economic rather than allowed to infect the realm of broad knowledge and objective information.
Of course, it is the disease of liberal laziness as the culprit, polluting our precious bodily fluids, and if the pointy heads would get a real job then libraries could become what they should be. Just another source of business jesus keeping folks in line.
It's all about the code. The right wing code.
SANTA CLARITA, Calif. — A private company in Maryland has taken over public libraries in ailing cities in California, Oregon, Tennessee and Texas, growing into the country’s fifth-largest library system.
Can a municipal service like a library hold so central a place that it should be entrusted to a profit-driven contractor only as a last resort — and maybe not even then?
It should be obvious that yes, a service like a library is held so central to a place it should not be entrusted to a profit-driven contractor. There are several reasons why this is a bad idea, and among them is certainly a sense of community free from the competitive wrangling people do during their work lives. But much more obvious is the library being a source, and sometimes a primary source of objective information, free from possible, or probable ideological corruption of information. Which is rampant and increasing as conservation alternate realities are on the rise to install right wing dogma in government and about everywhere else. Such as the war on science and substituting religious concepts and morality that are bible based and highly subjective. The smearing of the science of evolution is a prime example of this.
But mostly for me, it is the ethos of capitalism and profit worship above all else, in service to wealth and power becoming the first value leading this country into fear and ignorance of other values, such as art and literature and the like, that is most alarming. This God of Profit almost always is followed by other right wing misinformation contrived to dumb down our national reality and discourse, and needs to remain in the realm of the economic rather than allowed to infect the realm of broad knowledge and objective information.
“A lot of libraries are atrocious,” Mr. Pezzanite said. “Their policies are all about job security. That’s why the profession is nervous about us. You can go to a library for 35 years and never have to do anything and then have your retirement. We’re not running our company that way. You come to us, you’re going to have to work.”
Of course, it is the disease of liberal laziness as the culprit, polluting our precious bodily fluids, and if the pointy heads would get a real job then libraries could become what they should be. Just another source of business jesus keeping folks in line.
It's all about the code. The right wing code.
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