Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters to Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Master Debater

Thank God!

“Lord, we ain’t what we want to be; we ain’t what we ought to be; we ain’t what we gonna be, but, thank God, we ain’t what we was.”

- Martin Luther King, Jr., 1959, to the Hawaii State Legislature

Ratified

View my page on NakedAbe.com

Obama Campaign at Ohio University

Max and the Beastie Boys Get out the Vote concert

Ethel and Max Kennedy on Obama

I'm Fired Up!

A Beautiful Man

Rosa sat

Rosa sat, so Martin could walk…
Martin walked, so Obama could run…
Obama is running, so our children can FLY!

- unidentified man on NPR

I got chills - they're multiplying!

Spreading the Wealth

This business with Joe the Plumber and attacking Obama for "spreading the wealth" is quite ridiculous. Anybody who has ever read, Adam Smith – the father of Capitalism – will know that Smith fully understands and believes that wealth should be spread.

“It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.”
- from, The Wealth of Nations (1776)

Moreover, the last 8 years under Bush have been an example of taking the little wealth possessed by the lower and middle class and spreading it onto the wealthy. The income gap in America is extremely high. This contributes to so many of society's ills - including more crime and worse public health. This ends up costing all people even more money.

Hey McCain supporters and Reagan lovers, the reality is that Obama's pledged tax rate for the top 5% of income earners is lower than Reagan's. If the tax rate on the wealthy was good enough under Reagan, don't you think a lower tax rate than Reagan's is fine?

The reality is that (rougly speaking) Reagan increased our national debt by over $1.5 trillion. Bush 1 by over $2 trillion in just 4 years, Clinton by another $1.5 trillion, and Bush 2 and his Republican Congress by a whopping $5 trillion. What happened to the Republicans belief in limited government. We all have to pay for this mess. The next 8 years are going to be tough, as Bush 2 has caused the collapse of the greatest economy in the world.

For those who have worked hard to elect Obama, we know that as hard as it was for him, a black man in a country founded on the backs of slaves, to win against the wife of a popular two-term president in a primary, and to now beat (we hope) a Republican multi-millionaire (not self-made) with 8 homes and 20+ years in the Senate, that these two tasks are extremely easy compared to the work that must be done starting Nov. 5th to clean up this mess created by Bush 2. What a colossal failure of leadership by Bush 2. The next 8 years are going to be extremely hard, so let's roll up our sleeves and get to work.

Endangered Species

Here's the ad my friends Josh, Jeff, and Sari at 13keys.com put together, with help from SaysMe.tv and Kirsten Cerre on voice over and Trey Ellis (Huffington Post) as writer.

Maverick

Attacking Hope

This week a coordinated attack was launched on the HopeActChange.com community in an attempt to extinguish the message of hope, personal action and enacting positive change that was inspired by Barack Obama and made into an American mosaic through the efforts of thousands of citizens. The all-volunteer, Obama-inspired website was sabotaged by a small group of individuals who improperly flagged thousands of images that had been submitted by citizens across America, rendering roughly 20,000 family-oriented photos removed from view.

The images have since been restored to the HopeActChange.com website and their appearance within will.i.am’s Yes We Can video is once again fully functional. Despite this attack, the HopeActChange.com community will continue to remain entirely open and self-policing.

The synchronized assault is a painful reminder that there will always be people who spend their time and energy trying to disrupt and dismantle inspiring movements of hope, action, and positive change.

The HopeActChange.com collective invites you to join thousands of citizens across America in taking a stand against the cynics and troublemakers who have tried to bring down our community. Join us and make your voice heard. As Senator Obama has inspired us: "Nothing can stand in the way of millions of voices calling for change."


ABOUT HOPEACTCHANGE.COM
Larger than any of us, made possible by all of us, HopeActChange.com is an all-volunteer, open community of people empowering one another to create positive change in the world. It was born out of the inspiring Yes We Can speech that Senator Obama gave after winning the South Carolina primary. It has no formal ties to the Obama Presidential campaign nor any other political entity

Celtics 549 - Pistons 539

A Sports Parable

A statement from Detroit Pistons general manager Joe Dumars (as told to Christopher Orr)

Some in the media are declaring the series over because the Boston Celtics have won four of the six games played so far. But I don’t understand why, in a series this close and hotly contested, anyone would want to shut it down before we play a seventh game and have all the results in. ...

It’s no great surprise that some are trying to push us out of this series. From the beginning, it’s been clear that the media and league elites have been looking for an exciting new face, instead of a team, like ours, that has proven its mettle by making it to the Conference Finals six* years in a row. ...

But back to the series in question. Yes, Boston has won four games and Detroit only two. But it's hard to imagine a more arbitrary and undemocratic way to determine this series’s outcome than "games won." It is, after all, a bedrock value of the game of basketball that all points must be counted. But how can that be the case when every point beyond the winning point is ignored? There are literally dozens of layups, jumpers, free throws, and (yes, even) dunks that our opponents want to say don't count for anything at all. We call on the NBA to do the right thing and fully count all of the baskets that were made throughout the course of this series.

Once you abandon the artificial four-games-to-two framework that the media has tried to impose on the series, a very different picture emerges, with the Celtics leading by a mere 549 points to 539. Yes that’s right, the margin between the two teams is less than one percent—a tie, for all intents and purposes. This is probably the closest Conference Finals in NBA history, though I will thank you not to check on that.

How do we determine a winner in a series so historically close? ... More

Solving the Food Crisis: Pass the Land Shrimp

Consider the nutritional value of the humble cricket: Each 100 grams of dehydrated tissue has 1,550 milligrams of iron, 340 milligrams of calcium, and 25 milligrams of zinc -- three minerals often lacking in the diets of third-world countries. If you're ever lost in the woods, three crickets a day will meet your iron needs. Compared to beef or pork, bugs deliver more minerals and healthier fats.

Bugs are also more energy-efficient. Crickets deliver twice as much edible tissue as pigs and almost six times as much as steers based on the same food input. And that's not counting their superior rate of reproduction. One scholar calculates that overall, they're 20 times more efficient than steers.

That global food crisis you've been reading about? No problem. An Asian expert reports that in Thailand, each family can raise crickets independently on a tiny parcel of land. In a pair of villages, 400 families are cranking out 10 metric tons of crickets during the peak season.

Bug-eating also reduces the need for pesticides. The more bugs you eat, the less you have to spray. That's what happened in Thailand, where locusts have been brought under control through culinary culling.

You've never eaten bugs? You're missing out. People in most countries eat insects. Central Americans eat butterfly larvae. South Americans eat beetles. Africans eat ants, caterpillars, and grubs. Asians eat fried crickets. Aborigines eat honey ants.

-William Saletan, Slate

Hillary Clinton makes money off her campaign.

Guess what Clinton campaign donors? The money you give is going back into Hillary's pocket, with interest.

Funny how the news media never questions the fact that Hillary Clinton loans her campaign money rather than just gives it. She clearly has the money to give (with her tax returns showing she and her husband are worth over $100 million), but instead asks her donors (the majority far poorer than she) to give their hard-earned dollars to her campaign, effectively paying her back with interest.

When a candidate loans money to a campaign, it has to be a legal loan, which means it must have an interest rate. Why doesn't Hillary do what most hard-working Americans do when they have a business idea - put her own money where her mouth is.

If she's not willing to give her own money to support her cause, then why should I or any of you?

What an embarrassment.

George Bush is an Embarrassment and a Failure

President George Bush has managed to derail the most powerful economy in the world, speed up America's demise as the world's only superpower by 50 years or so, and return the world to the 8th Century Crusades, all while making his friends rich.

What a colossal embarrassment.

Bill Clinton is an Embarrassment

In April '92, Clinton camp called Brown victory "impossible"

Bill Clinton, on Sunday (May 25): "I have never seen anything like it. I have never seen a candidate [Hillary] treated so disrespectfully just for running. ... I can't believe it. It is just frantic the way they are trying to push and pressure and bully all these superdelegates to come out.

Check out the JedReport for the full record

And here's Andrew Sullivan's take:

In 1992, the Iowa caucus occurred a month later than it did this year. So the length of time between the first primary and the Clinton camp's public pressure on their main rival to withdraw was two months. It's almost six months since Iowa this year, and it has been mathematically near-impossible for Clinton to win since March. The Clintons are such accomplished sociopaths that they begin to make you believe their lies after a while.

James Baker: Talking to the Enemy is not Appeasement

In May of 2006, John McCain said former Secretary of State James Baker was one of the "smartest" men he knew and that he was likely to ask Baker to serve as a diplomatic envoy to the Middle East. Speaking to an Israeli newspaper, McCain added "I know you in Israel don't like Baker."

Baker's comments about "appeasement" came on October 6, yet within a matter of days, McCain had once again included Baker on the list of his potential Middle East diplomats.

The video is from an October, 2006 interview on Hannity & Colmes.

Weirdout by Noah K.

My Mother's Inner Picasso

"SHE" by M.C. Hill

Web 3.0

If Web 2.0 is about allowing regular people to create content online through photo-sharing, video-uploading, music-downloading, and personal blogging on multiple social networks, then Web 3.0 is about the strategic design of the flow and presentation of information.

We are already overwhelmed by the amount of information coming at us every minute of the day. At the same time, each of us everyday contributes to the world's knowledge, thus creating more information. Success will come to those who create systems that allow for current, reliable, and personalized information to reach the masses in easily digestible chunks while simultaneously tracking, organizing, and analyzing the responses and reactions of the masses in the aggregrate so that better decisions can be made, as suggested by the greater wisdom of crowds. It's a simple loop, but hard to master.

You heard it first right here.

Election Media Coverage is so Frustrating

The headlines read "Tide is Turning for Clinton". Unbelievable. The real news is that a black man running against the wife of a popular two-term president in a country founded on the backs of slaves is actually winning on all levels: delegates, popular vote, and number of states won. The real news is that Clinton had over a 20% lead in the weeks leading up to the Pennsylvania election and that Obama cut that lead to under 10%. That is a victory for Obama in my eyes. He's running against the establishment. We all know it won't be easy, but you'd think some thoughtful person in the press would express this view. I still have hope. Do you?

Hillary's Poor Sportsmanship = Bad Character

I'm entirely frustrated by Sen. Clinton's failure to concede. Her chances of winning are so incredibly small. She would have to win 80% of the vote from hear on out. It's just not possible. Every day she stays in the race, she helps Sen. McCain in the general election. Her negativity is appalling, and to think all that to win Pennsylvania by about 10 delegates. Where is her party loyalty? The picture above says it all. And the media of course loves it. The more they are able to make it a race, the more papers they sell.

I wonder when an honest journalist is going to point out the fact that Sen. Clinton's failure to concede is basically poor sportsmanship. Good sportsmanship is highly valued in this country. It's taught to millions of children every day on the sports fields. Being a good winner and a good loser is so important, and it's a reflection of character. What sort of example is she setting for the millions of children out there? She goes against the entire ethos of what it means to compete fairly in any arena. And her failure to concede, her insistence on pressing forward no matter what is the result of a narcissism and a self-interest that would destroy any team on earth. Shame on Hillary for ignoring the big picture in the interests of self. There comes a time when you have to face the writing on the wall and join the team for the greater good - that of a Democratic victory in November. The Republicans, ironically, are much wiser. Their supporters and their candidates fell in line behind there best hope in November, even if they didn't necessarily like him.

“The time has come. The time has come. The time is now. Just go. ... I don’t care how. You can go by foot. You can go by cow. Hillary R. Clinton, will you please go now! You can go on skates. You can go on skis. ... You can go in an old blue shoe.

Just go, go, GO!"

My Inner Picasso

"ME WE" by W.M. Hill

I just found something wonderful. Mr. Picasso Head. Find your inner picasso and create your own painting at http://www.mrpicassohead.com

SI SE PUEDE! YES WE CAN! YE BEH TUMI! WOH BAA NYE!

To those who say you run for office with poetry and you rule with prose, I ask you to re-read your history. During the Civil War, when our country was at its most divided, arguably the best President the U.S. has ever known, Abraham Lincoln (an Illinois Congressman from a different era) held this country together with poetry, not prose. You need merely look at his speeches. When President Lincoln asked us to act on "the better angels of our nature," he sent forth a ripple of hope and love that still moves us today. It's poetry the world needs, and America especially.