BiddiesInMyBrain

Ya think?? LOL

It's not as though I haven't made my views known... :::laughing::: They have me pretty well pegged...


My Political Views
I am a left social libertarian
Left: 6.87, Libertarian: 5.06

Political Spectrum Quiz
My Foreign Policy Views
Score: -4.81

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My Culture War Stance
Score: -8.99

Political Spectrum Quiz

Read It. Never Forget It. Teach the Children.

From Keith Olbermann, via Daily Kos:

George Walker Bush.
43rd president of the United States.
first ever with a criminal record.
our third story tonight,
his presidency: eight years in eight minutes.

early in 2001 the U.S. fingered Al Qaeda
for the bombing of the USS Cole
Bush counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke
had a plan to take down Al Qaeda.
instead by February the NSC
had already discussed invading Iraq,
and had a plan for post-Saddam Iraq.

by March 5 Bush had a map ready for Iraqi oil exploration
and a list of companies.
Al Qaeda?
Rice told Clarke not to give Bush a lot of long memos.
not a big reader.

August 6, 2001
a CIA analyst briefs Bush on vacation:
"Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S."
Bush takes no action tells the briefer—quote
all right, you've covered your ass now.

next month Clarke requests
using new predator drones to kill Bin Laden
the Pentagon and CIA
say no.

September 11th
Bush remains seated for several minutes
to avoid scaring school children
by getting up and leaving.
he then flies around the country
and promises quote a full scale investigation to find
those folks who did it

Rumsfeld says Afghanistan does not have enough targets
we've got to do Iraq.
when the CIA traps Bin Laden at Tora Bora
it asks for 800 rangers to cut off his escape
Bush outsources the job to Pakistanis
sympathetic to the Taliban
Bin Laden
gets away

in February General Tommy Franks tells a visiting Senator
Bush is moving equipment out of Afghanistan
so he can invade Iraq.
one of the men who prepped Rice for her testimony
that Bush did not ignore pre 9-11 warnings
later explains quote we cherry picked things
to make it look like the president
had been actually concerned about Al Qaeda
they didn't give a bleep about Al Qaeda

July and Britain's intel chief says Bush is
fixing intelligence and facts around the policy to take out Saddam
January 03
Bush and Blair agree to invade in March
Mr. Bush still telling us he has not decided
telling Blair they should paint an airplane in UN colors
fly it over Iraq and provoke a response
a pretext for invasion

the man who said it would take several hundred thousand troops
fired
the man who said it would cost more than a hundred billion
fired
the man who revealed Bush's yellowcake lie
smeared
his wife's covert status
exposed
the White House liars who did it
and covered it up
not fired
one convicted
Bush commutes his sentence

then in Iraq, stuff happens:
Iraq's army, disbanded
the government de-Baathified
200,000 weapons, billions of dollars just
lost
foreign mercenaries immunized from justice
political hacks run the Green Zone
religious cleansing forcing one out of six Iraqis from their homes
Abu Ghraib
the insurgency
Al Qaeda in Iraq

other stuff does not happen:
WMD
post-war planning
body armor
vehicular armor

the payoff?
oil
and billions for Halliburton, Blackwater and other companies
while Mr. Bush denies VA healthcare to 450,000 veterans
tries to raise their healthcare fees
blocks the new G.I. Bill
and increases his own power with the USA PATRIOT Act
with the Military Commissions Act
public orders exempting himself from a thousand laws
and secretly from the Presidential Records Act
The Geneva Conventions
FISA
sparking a mass rebellion at the Justice Department

secret star chambers for terrorism suspects,
overturned by Hamdan v Rumsfeld.
denying habeas corpus,
overturned by Boumediene v Bush.
200 renditionings
sleep deprivation
abuse

Rumsfeld warned in 2002 that he was torturing
that it would jeopardize convictions
out of 550 at Gitmo
hundreds ultimately go free with no charges
dozens are tortured
eight fatally
three are convicted

on U.S. soil twelve hundred immigrants rounded up
without due process
without bail
without court dates
without a single charge of terrorism

it wasn't just Mr. Bush no longer subject to the rule of law
he slashed regulations on everyone from banks to mining companies
appointed 98 lobbyists to oversee their own industries
weakening emission standards for mercury
and 650 different toxic chemicals
regulators shared drugs
and their beds
with industry reps
the Crandall Canyon mine owner told inspectors to back up
because his buddy, Republican Mitch McConnell
was sleeping with their boss
McConnell's wife is Bush Labor Secretary Elaine Chao
her agency overruled engineer concerns about Crandall Canyon
and was found negligent
after nine miners died in the collapse there

Mr. Bush's hands off
as Enron blacks out California
doubling electric bills
after months of rejecting price caps Mr. Bush bows to pressure

the blackouts end

Mr. Bush further deregulates commodity futures
midwifing the birth of unregulated oil markets
which just like Enron jack up prices to an all time high
until Congress and both presidential candidates call for regulations

and the prices fall

deregulating financial services and lax enforcement of remaining rules
created a housing bubble
creating the mortgage crisis
creating then a credit crisis
devastating industries that rely on credit
from student loans to car dealers

firms that had survived the Great Depression could not survive Bush
those that did got
seven hundred billion dollars
no strings, no transparency
no idea whether it worked

unlike the auto bailout
which cut workers' salaries.
a GOP memo called it
a chance to punish unions

but Bush failed even when his party and his patrons
did not stand to profit
investigators blamed management cost cutting communication
for missed warnings about Columbia
Bush administration convicts include
sex offenders at Homeland Security
convicted liars
every kind of thief in the calendar
and if you count things that were not prosecuted
the vice president of the United States actually
shot a man in the face

the man apologized.

Mr. Bush faked the truth
with paid propaganda in Iraq
on his education policy

tried to silence the truth about global warming
rocket fuel in our water
industry influence on energy policy

politicized the truth of science at NASA, the EPA,
the National Cancer Institute, Fish and Wildlife
and the FDA

his lies
exposed by whistleblowers from the cabinet down
"complete BS" the treasury secretary said
of Mr. Bush on his tax cuts.

Rice's mushroom cloud
Powell's mobile labs
Iraq and 9-11
Jack Abramoff
Jessica Lynch

Pat Tillman
Pat Tillman again
Pat Tillman, again.

the air at Ground Zero
most responders still suffering respiratory problems.

global warming
carbon emissions
a Clear Skies initiative lowering air quality standards
the Healthy Forests initiative increasing logging
faith based initiatives
the cost of medicare reform
fired US attorneys
politically synchronized terror alerts

the surge causing insurgents to switch sides
that abortion causes breast cancer
that his first recession began under Clinton
that he did not wiretap without warrants
that we do not torture.

that American citizen John Walker Lindh's rights
were not violated
that he refused the right to counsel

heckuva job Brownie
some survivors still in trailers
New Orleans still at just two-thirds its usual population

the lie that no one could have predicted the economic crisis
except
the economists who did
no one could have predicted 9-11 except
one ass-covering CIA analyst
or thirty
no one could have predicted the levee breach
except literally
Mr. Bill
in a PSA that aired on TV a year before Katrina

Bush actually admitted that he lied about not firing Rumsfeld
because he did not want to tell the truth.
look it up.

all of it
all of it and more leaving us with
ten trillion in debt
to pay for 31% more in discretionary spending
the Iraq War
a 1.3 trillion dollar tax cut

median income down two thousand dollars
three-quarters of all income gains under Bush
going to the richest one percent
unemployment up from 4.2 to 7.2 percent

the Dow, down from ten thousand five hundred eighty seven
to eighty two hundred seventy seven
six million now more in poverty
seven million more now without health care

buying toxic goods from China
deadly cribs
outsourcing security to Dubai
still unsecure in our ports
and at our nuclear plants
more dependent on foreign oil
out of the international criminal court
off the anti ballistic missle treaty
military readiness and standards down

with two unfinished wars
a nuclear North Korea
disengaged from the Palestinian problem
destabilizing eastern european diplomacy with
anti missile plans
and unable to keep Russia out of Georgia

2000 miles of Appalachian streams
destroyed by rubble from mountaintop mining
at his last G-8 summit,
he actually bid farewell to other world leaders
saying quote—goodbye from the world's greatest polluter

consistently undermining historic American reverence
for the institutions that empower us
education, now "academic elites"
and the law, "activist judges"
capping jury awards

and Bin Laden?
living today unmolested in a Pakistani safe haven
created by a truce endorsed and defended by George W. Bush

and among all the gifts he gave to Bin Laden
the most awful, the most damaging not just to America
but to the American ideal
was to further Bin Laden's goal
by making us act out of fear rather than fortitude

leaving us with precious little to cling to tonight
save the one thing that might yet suffice:

hope.

2008 Meme

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?
– Took a MARVELOUS couple of train rides; one in the Royal Gorge and one on the Cumbres and Toltec Railroad. 

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
– I don’t make new year resolutions.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
– I swear we have had the most fertile church in Memphis this year.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
– Yes. A friend who was three years younger than I... she died of a brain aneurysm.

5. What countries did you visit?
– The United States and my inner self.

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
– My ABD. My health. An electric car (per Crash). A flat screen TV.

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
– 11/4. Obama's election. I have never cried tears of joy over an election. Ever. I hope they were not in vain.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
– Finishing my coursework? My teaching?

9. What was your biggest failure?
– Ugh. Not performing to my ability this last semester in my coursework.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
– Oh geez. We are *so* no going there right now.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
– My new laptop. The new CH/A. The new plumbing. The refinanced mortgage.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
– My students - most of them, anyway!

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
– Politicians in general (don't get me started). Certain relatives.

14. Where did most of your money go?
– I swear it went to healthcare, but the piechart on Quicken says other bills.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
– Teaching. Our trip to Colorado.

16. What song will always remind you of 2008?
– Hmmm... one song? I have no idea.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder?

- Happier. I'm always happier!

b) thinner or fatter?

- Thinner.

c) richer or poorer?

- I think we're about even on this. We lost a lot of our assets for retirement... but we've paid off a lot of bills... so I think it all is about a wash...

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
– Tending the roses. Reading non-PhD-related books. Listened to more music

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
– Wasting time. Oh god... this computer is a pit.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
– Sleeping, watching movies.

21. Did you fall in love in 2008?
- Only with Achmed the Dead Terrorist.

22. What was your favorite TV program?
– Countdown with Keith Olbermann, or the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
– Hate is a really strong word. But I have to admit I strongly dislike some people more this year than last... and feel better for having told some of them so.

24. What was the best book you read?
– Hmmmm... The best book? Booknotes: Stories from American History by Brian Lamb. Hands-down the best romp through American history I have *ever* read - and I have read a lot of them.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
– Heh. Amazon's MP3 downloads. With their freebies and their daily 99-cent albums. Wheee!

26. What did you want and get?
– To improve my teaching.

27. What did you want and not get?
– My damn health.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?
– Golden Compass.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
– Brother. I decided to get the floor furnace turned back on (again) and also call a plumber to get Crash's potty fixed... the floor furnace guy got here and immediately came right back out from under the house saying that the sewer line had ruptured... and I called the plumbers to come STAT... and thus started a $20,000 adventure which included our plumbing, central heat, air and a new mortgage. Oh. I was forty.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
– If I had had my health.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
– LOL... whatever I could find that would fit a person who has lost 10 dress sizes! I guess you would call it Thrift Store Chic.

32. What kept you sane?
– Friends, the internet, our church, school.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
– Um. Let's see. Obama? 

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
– The political issue that moved me the most was hoping that our country would have the collective will to vote for change and not put Sarah Palin anywhere near the Oval Office. (A friend of mine wrote this, and I will let it stand)

35. Who did you miss?
– My grandma.

36. Who was the best new person you met?
– OMG! I have met so many GREAT new people this year!! I haven't reached out in some 20 years... and now that I have it's amazing to me to find that there are really awesome people who are there IRL!!!

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.
– Oh geez. Which one? "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear."

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
- How about I quote a student exam response instead?

"Consequences are antidotes that should come before and after the antecedent."