Heavy Troop Deployments Are Called Major Risk – washingtonpost.com:
“Senior Army and Marine Corps leaders said yesterday that the increase of more than 30,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan has put unsustainable levels of stress on U.S. ground forces and has put their readiness to fight other conflicts at the lowest level in years.”
(Via The Washington Post.)
What are you left with when you kill the goose to get more and more of those golden eggs?
AlterNet: The Top 10 Myths Keeping Hillary in the Race:
“Myth: Well, I say they are disenfranchised, and Hillary Clinton is their champion.
Only when it suits her. Last fall, when the decision was first made to flush 100% of Michigan and Florida delegates, Clinton firmly ratified it.”
(Via AlterNet.org.)
Usually, I’m not a fan of AlterNet’s writers. So liberal, they lose touch with reality a bit too often for my taste, but this piece was amusing with a good ol’ fashioned sprinkling of—gasp!—facts thrown in!
I just read a great article that details disagreement that actually elevates a discussion’s participants far better than I have ever done. This is why I’m not a fan of rhetorical battle which on the DH scale is approximately DH3.5. It’s pretty and can convince those dazzled by eloquence or volume, but it’s not really substantive. Sophistry is what it is. And we are all guilty of it from time to time. That’s human.
For example, we cannot argue about matters of faith for reasons best given by example.
P1: The Bible is the Word of God.
P2: No it isn't.
--or--
P1: I know God.
P2: So do I.
The second statements should be completely true for P2 who contradicts P1, but without evidence to back P2 up she/he hasn’t made a convincing argument for either one’s veracity. That’s why I try to be very picky about how and why I argue things about faith, the Bible, politics, etc. Evidence requires substance and empirical observation. I can make a convincing argument based on evidence that the Bible doesn’t refer to itself at least the Bible. That’s cut and dry like saying that John begins with “In the beginning, was the Word.”
What’s more interesting, is that I can make a convincing argument that the Bible and the Word of God are not the same things provided I define them well. Based on those definitions which are real empirical things, I can construct an argument that differentiates them. That is a subtle but very important difference from proving the statement: “The Bible is not the Word of God.” A faith assertion that is not subject to rational argument. Faith is not argued; it is confessed.
Michelle Singletary – Debt Addicts Get A Dose of Reality – washingtonpost.com:
“But many of the individuals who are overloaded with debt need to take responsibility for their bad choices, too. Take credit card debt, for example. Certainly there has been a tremendous push — for decades — by financial institutions to get people to view credit cards as indispensable.
And consumers gladly went along, with no complaint, using other people’s money until life’s hardships — a job loss, illness or divorce — got in the way and they could no longer pay today for what they long since had purchased.”
(Via The Washington Post.)
A quick, but fair, look at why debtors clearly have to share responsibility in the current economic crisis.
(Via The Huffington Post.)
If Hillary misspoke, how can you misspeak in a book? How do you misspeak repeatedly? I don’t think I’d ever forget, misremember being shot at, ever.
My problem isn’t that she did the ol’ resumé puff up. After all, she is trying to sell herself to us voters by the very definition of political candidate. I expect puffery and I’ll even tolerate a small fish story here and there. But this is about substantiating her central claim to in her own words, “crossing the commander-in-chief threshold.” She has repeatedly belittled Obama on this score. My take: you live by the sword, you die by the sword. Her experience warrants scrutiny and if it is found lacking, whether because of lies, misspeaking, or faulty memory, it’s still lacking.
University of Chicago: Obama was a ‘professor’:
“The [Clinton] campaign also sent out a press release quoting a 2004 Chicago Sun-Times column that stated of Obama’s professor claim: ‘Several direct-mail pieces issued for Obama’s primary campaign said he was a law professor at the University of Chicago. He is not. He is a senior lecturer (now on leave) at the school. In academia, there is a vast difference between the two titles. Details matter.’
But in a statement, the university said its senior lecturers are considered professors.”
(Via CNN Political Ticker.)
Yes Hillary, details do in fact matter.
Colmes speaks to a mixed-race couple about Rev. Wright and the media smear of Obama.
What happens when the little guy gets a voice in politics. Wow. For the first time in my adult life I’m proud of my country! 😉
UPDATE:
Crazy!
msnbc.com video: Obama on the economy:
(Via MSNBC.com.)
Wages and incomes for middle class America have been flat for far longer than Obama intimated. In real dollar terms, they’ve been stagnant for decades where the top earners’ incomes shares of national income have quintupled. So in terms of basic fairness and even sound long term economics, you’ve got to pay the piper. Rich folk: do you want to be pigs who get fat or hogs who get slaughtered?
Obama Casts Wide Blame for Financial Crisis and Proposes Homeowner Aid – New York Times:
“‘Instead of establishing a 21st-century regulatory framework, we simply dismantled the old one,’ he said, ‘aided by a legal but corrupt bargain in which campaign money all too often shaped policy and watered down oversight.’”
(Via The NY Times.)
I’m always for keeping things balanced. One thing he can’t say without losing his bid is that a 21 century framework has to be structured so that debtors shoulder some responsibility. While I’m sure many were hoodwinked and bamboozled, many others simply got greedy and gorged on cheap debt. They have to be taken to the shed as well. Let’s hope Barack leads in an effort to setup such a system.
