Partisan Free Politics

On this day 6 years ago, Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked 4 passenger airplanes and slammed them to the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the heroes of Flight 93 sacrificed themselves by preventing their plane from striking DC. On that day, terrorism was the biggest threat. It was literally chaos as people wondered if their loved ones were still alive and others fearful if their city was next. To some, reality didn't set in as they couldn't believe that within an hour on a clear Tuesday day, the world was suddenly changed. Nobody knew what else would happen in the coming days.  Episodes such as  the anthrax scare and the would-be shoebomber on flight close to Christmas 2001 made people wonder if ...

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The big topic in the campaign is health insurance. Various different presidential candidates have offered their stance on this issue. Some want market forces, others want full coverage. In some states, there are plans for universal health insurance in California and in Massachusetts, taxes is the stick to force companies to give their workers health insurance. Well, John Edwards recently told of his vision of health care and its a little frightening. Here is the story link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070902/ap_on_el_pr/edwards_2 Under his plan, he will require all Americans to have a yearly doctor visit. Now preventive care has its good qualities. But having it forced is a different issue. Now for a short media plug, it sounds all nice and dandy, but there is a reason why ...

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Last night, 8 GOP candidates squared off in yet another televised debate from the University of New Hampshire. I can't fault any of you for not watching, as usual it ended up looking more like 8 parallel press conferences than a true debate. But for about 3 minutes, however, a real debate managed to break out in what was without a doubt the most interesting moments of the program. [youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=u9sA5FQfE1E[/youtube] As I watched live, I couldn't believe my eyes: this is what real democracy is supposed to look like. Wouldn't it be grand if we could see every candidate up there engaged in a real honest discussion with each other? Maybe we could actually understand the differences between ...

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part 2 - Democrats This one is going to be rough. Democrats flock to health care like or [Insert your own awful cliché here] white on rice. Unlike their Republican counterparts, every Democrat seems to be taking the problems of our uninsured very seriously. So seriously in fact that every single one of them has “The Solution” – thank goodness, cause I thought this was a complex problem… To be fair to the candidates, I am not going to get their plans 100% right – I did not read everything on all of their policies. Instead, I focused on watching and analyzing their message ...

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The post-Colbert Bump is working its magic yet again. The mainstream press (and even some of the blogosphere) has been having a virtual Huckabee love-fest, from the this article in the NYTimes, to this one in the Washington Post. The story goes that this Southern Baptist preacher is sincere, affable, plays the guitar, likes the Rolling Stones, and yes, is pretty funny. Plus he's for environmental regulation, believes in cleaning up the prison system, and takes other stereotypcially "liberal" positions (although he is pro-life). Basically, from all the media hype he appears to be the dark horse favorite; an evangelical who can win "the base" but not alienate moderate voters. I must admit, I too am loving Huckabee, ...

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I would like a discussion about whether or not Senator Craig should resign. I heard one guy on NPR talk about how because Craig admitted to the crime, lewd conduct, he should resign.  Basically I find it hard to believe that it is the actual crime and not the supposed underlying act, or technically speaking the supposed intended act, that is causing the uproar.  If an elected official is convicted of some other rather minor misdemeanors to law and order, should they resign?  Frankly I think this is primarily about gay sex. This opens up into a lot of issues, but I don't have time to write presently b/c I have a free lunch to order and a ...

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Could it really be? With all these billions of dollars being thrown around on ad-time and barnstorming? Have all the campaigns just coincidentally skipped over an issue of such great importance? An issue that almost undoubtedly will be thoroughly lobbied, legislated, and litigated throughout the next President's term? Well, unless I missed something on my recent search through candidate websites and an extensive collection of youtube videos (and please feel free to check in with your favorite personalities if you can find anything) that appears to be the case. [Outside of John Edwards' plan for a "New Deal"-like national broadband project, to connect all wireless devices, and ensure that internet providers do not discriminate ...

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Since 9/11 the federal government has been doing it's utmost to protect us from ourselves. Thankfully however, the plug has been pulled on two controversial data-mining programs citing massive privacy invasions. The first program was called ADVISE (Analy­sis, Dissemina­tion, Visu­ali­zation, Insight and Semantic Enhance­ment), brought to you by Michael Chertoff (a possible candidate for replacing Alberto Gonzales) and the Department of Homeland Security. The CS Monitor reports that ADVISE was "designed to ingest information from scores of databases, blogs, e-mail traffic, intelligence reports, and other sources". Apparently the DHS missed the memo about the constitution (that it indeed exists). The project was discontinued after a report released by the Office of ...

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Part 1 - Republicans (updated 9/2/07) Issues of health are definitely on my mind these days. It may have something to do with the fact that I am uninsured with a type 3 or type 5 AC separation in my shoulder - that may or may not need surgery (I'll find out on Wednesday). Taking a step back, I am only one person among 46.6 million uninsured Americans. (check out the U.S. Census for more information) To the point: I thought I would conduct a YouTube analysis to see what the presidential hopefuls were saying. Starting with the Republicans: I was shocked that ...

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