Partisan Free Politics

You gotta love Congress, as a source of quotes if nothing else.  Following is a link to a weekly feature we produce at my current place of employment.  Our last installment was about the pay raise Congress is giving itself this year (and which they AUTOMATICALLY get each year unless they vote to stop it).  What a wonderful world they live in. http://www.taxpayer.net/TCS/wastebasket/budget/2007-06-29payraise.html I strongly suggest you follow the embedded links as well.  The last one, an article by CQ, is especially enlightening.  It makes me happy to see the leadership of each party finally coming through on their promises of bipartisanship... 

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So for anyone who was too busy making a living last week to dig through the rush of important decisions coming from the Roberts Court, I figured I would pull out a couple especially interesting cases to start the 1st Annual PFP High Court Low Post. This is my first attempt to cover the Supreme Court, although the Great Divide Ranch's court is one of the highest courts in the land, so I have some experience to fall back on... Luckily for me the boyish charms of Chief Justice Roberts are easy on the eyes, and Justice Thomas has promised to be gentle with the questioning this term... I'll start with the good news: FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life (5-4, with ...

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As my interests fall more towards the sphere of international politics I found this article from the latest addition of the Economist rather interesting. It raises some interesting points about the wanning, or not, of US hard and soft power in the world. In terms of hard power, while our military may be overstretched, it is my view that the United States is still the lone super power in the world. In terms of soft power, the area gets more sticky. I truly believe we are living in a multipolar world when it comes to economics and the world economy. While the dollar may be falling, the Euro rising, and the Chinese and Indians driving, the US is still the ...

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Reading my July edition of Beer Advocate magazine, I found a spectacular example of how difficult it can be to live up to one's ideals.  While I am not a vegan, I know a few people who are and I respect their choice to live such a lifestyle, whatever their reason(s) for doing so.  I am well well aware of the fact that many vegetarians or vegans avoid products  containing gelatin, but until today I had never heard of isinglass.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isinglass http://homepage.ntlworld.com/geraint.bevan/Vegetarian_beers.html#Adnams  http://www.gonchong.co.uk/vegbeer.html  Fascinating stuff.  From what I garnered reading BA and surfing the web it appears virtually none of the product is left in the beer that is bottled or kegged, just like virtually none of the yeast is left in a filtered beer.  But if ...

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So this blog began a mere week ago, but I've been pleasantly surprised what has happened here. Here's a summary of the web traffic; overall there have been 797 pageviews and 541 unique users, but here are some geographic breakdowns (something which I find most interesting is how many Montanans are reading the blog). Region - Visits District of Columbia - 36 Montana - 34 Texas - 20 Wisconsin - 19 Pennsylvania - 18 Georgia - 18 Oregon - 14 Massachusetts - 11 Virginia - 9 (not set) - 8 I encourage you all ...

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So I saw it last night, if you haven't seen it, but plan to, don't read this post. I really have to hand it to him this time - he is getting way better at writing propaganda (the musical score alone contained selection from Platoon and other classics). The first half-hour or so of the movie contained nothing but close-up shots of people crying/dieing due to the lack of reasonable health care. That being said I thoroughly enjoyed the film. After the emotional battering, he began an upbeat expose of other countries that do provide social services, how wonderful they lived and how everyone was happy. Enter the problems of socialized medicine In computing health care costs, socialized nation separate the expense of ...

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Among the conversations here have been a critique of the short-term thinking of corporations. It is no secret that a great deal of external pressure is placed on publicly traded organizations to maximize growth, especially in the short term. This methodology narrows the focus of CEO's and contributes to the perception that things like "the environment" or a "sustainable and well-trained workforce" are mere externalities. A few weeks ago, the front page of the Financial Times, featured a report issued by the Aspen Institute's Business and Society Program. This initiative brought such varied interests as the AFL-CIO, Pfizer, Inc. and Council of Institutional Investors - to begin shifting investors away from quarterly earnings, and ...

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I'm sure most of you news junkies have already read about this, but for those of you who haven't, Robert Bork, the world's favorite failed Supreme Court nominee, is suing the Yale Club after he fell on the stairs before giving a speech there.... for over $1,000,000 !!! After he fell, Bork went on to give his speech, so obviously nothing was seriously wrong with him, but now he's whistlin' a new tune. In addition, the critic of judicial activism and defender of framer's intent also asks that they pay his attorney's fees. What's that thing about the courts being used for frivolous purposes again? http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0723225120070607

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Just last week Sen. Obama released his policy proposals for reforming government. In addition to “closing the revolving door”, “electronic financial disclosures” and many other well meaning measures including: (2) 21ST CENTURY FIRESIDE CHATS: People who care deeply about issues in Washington but live outside the beltway rarely have the opportunity to question and interact with government agencies. Messages are filtered through the media, and many times the hard questions are not asked. Barack Obama will bring democracy and policy directly to the people by requiring his Cabinet officials to have periodic national broadband town hall meetings to discuss issues before their agencies. The Internet makes it possible to take our leaders directly to the people. If this is possible then it should also be mandatory....

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