Hi Moose.
I have read the links you gave me and talked with my Dad and have some idea what I am doing. Dad has suggested I take the outline they have given me and put it here as a diary. I will edit it here as I work on it, if anyone has any suggestions I will be reading the comments.
Thanks!
-Damien
p.s. This is the outline for the speech, the top part of it has been put into a speech format.
I guess every Moose thread is an “open” thread where we toss off whatever is on our minds. In that vein, this is going to be a bit of “stream of consciousness” because, well, I can.
The title of my piece (not that piece, fog) comes from two things, the first being the lack of cable television in my house. The cable company and I disagreed on the frequency of my payments (quarterly didn’t seem to cut it with them) so they cut me off. Not a loss really; I was going to cut them off at some point. I watch about six channels and it didn’t seem prudent to pay as much as I was to watch so very few channels. Plus, I was one of those people who turned the TV on first thing in the morning and the damned thing was on as long as I was home. Even when I was sleeping ~ background noise, you know. But amazingly, I’ve been without cable for a month now and I haven’t gone stark raving mad … yet (or more, depending on your opinion of me). But, do not despair for I have discovered Netflix ~ the greatest thing EVER. Sure, I’d heard of it but never bothered to investigate. But it’s great! I get to watch the movies I want to watch when I want them. When I get my Internet back (yeah, they took that, too, but I’m going to get that back) I can stream stuff. Is this country great or what?!
Silence, though, is turning the TV (or the radio, or whatever) off. I usually watch about a half hour of whatever DVD is in the player when I get up and then I turn the TV off. And, guess what! There are all kinds of sounds to be heard. The gentle snore of Fran or Sam (hopefully that was just a snore and not some other bodily function). The lawnmowers or kids outside. The sound of the audible crosswalk signals (we have those in soon-to-have-single-payerish-healthcare Vermont).
I can also hear myself think.
(Knowing Meese are a polymorphic bunch, I will share an article I wrote for InfosecIsland on the response by Siemens, Sony and Cisco to recent security failures in their products or services. -chris)
In the wake of Siemens’, Cisco’s and Sony’s recent experience with Incident Management, the question of diligence comes clearly to the fore. Diligence is the nebulous factor that is key in demonstrating that others should put their trust in you, whether it is a matter of investing in your company or measuring your compliance or just deciding if it is safe to get in your car with you late on a Saturday night.
By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/
If Barack gets past the primary, he might have to publicly distance himself from me. I said it to Barack personally, and he said yeah, that might have to happen.
– Jeremiah Wright, April 2007
Today, former Reverend Jeremiah Wright is nationally infamous as the controversial former head of President Barack Obama’s former church. During the primary campaign, tapes of Mr. Wright’s sermons did deep damage to Mr. Obama’s candidacy, to which Mr. Obama later responded with a unique and heartfelt speech about race. To this day the Wright affair remains the most damaging scandal the president has encountered.
ABC’s news report, however, was not the first time that a news organization reported about Mr. Wright’s controversial statements. Take, for instance, this fascinating New York Times story – a report written a full year before the Jeremiah Wright scandal exploded.
More below.
Wonderful news for any of us who followed the horrors of the break up of Yugoslavia, and witnessed hundreds of thousands killed in the nationalist wars that followed. The Yugoslav wars were mainly inspired by the Serbian Leader Slobodan Milosevic, his henchman Radovan Karadzic in Bosnia, and his key military leader, Ratko Mladic.
The last key figure of that evil triumvirate, responsible for mass murder, rape and ethnic cleansing, has been arrested in Serbia. According to Belgrade’s Blic Newspaper
Ratko Mladic was arrested five hours ago by the Security information Agency (BIA), reports the Serbian daily “Blic”. Mladic, who was arrested in Lazarevo, near Zrenjanin, has been using false papers and identified himself as Milorad Komadic….
“With his arrest we ended a very difficult period and removed a stigma from Serbia and Serbian people, wherever they are. I think that this operation shows that the institutions of the state of Serbia made this country safe and secured the rule of law”, Mr. Tadic said.
This is also great news for the people of Serbia who, with this last arrest, have a pathway to join the EU and acquire the norms of the civil society, probity and free elections contained its protocols. As Serbian president Boris Tadic has just said
On behalf of the republic of Serbia, I inform you that Ratko Mladic was arrested this morning … The extradition process is taking place.
Mladic will be extradited to the Hague where he’ll face the following charges from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
Count 1: genocide
Count 2: complicity in genocide
Count 3: Persecutions on political, racial and religious grounds
Count 4: Extermination
Count 5: Murder
Count 6: Murder
Count 7: Deportation
Count 8: Inhumane acts (forcible transfer)
Count 9: unlawfully inflicting terror upon civilians
Count 10: murder
Count 11: murder
Count 12: cruel treatment
Count 13: inhumane acts
Count 14: attacks on civilians
Count 15: taking of hostages
For those of you too young to remember the Bosnian War, the continued freedom of Mladic – who personally directed the murder of 8,000 Bosnian men and boys in the UN safe area of Srebrenica, the worst civilian massacre in Europe since the Second War – was not only an insult to international law but […]
Hi Mooses.
I have to give a persuasive speech arguing for (or against) something topical. The USA Patriot Action looks like fertile ground to argue and I am trying to decide whether I should argue for or against it, and why.
If Meese would be interested in helping me with this I would be very grateful. My speech will be given between June 1st or 2nd.
A hopelessly short diary to celebrate having your President over at my place today. I’d write more, but I’ve been busy. Just see how many chairs I had to put out.
P
olls close at 9PM EDT in New York for the special election in New York’s 26th congressional district. This seat was opened up by the resignation of Congressman Chris “Craigslist” Lee and it is attracting considerable national attention.
While highly favoured to be a safe Republican seat in normal circumstances the presence of a Tea Party candidate, the former Democratic challenger Jack Davis, and the arguably disastrous political miscalculation inherent in the Ryan budget Medicare phase-out has put the seat in play.
Recent polling shows a slight lead for the Democratic challenger, Kathy Hochul, who had aggressively campaigned on the Medicare issue for several weeks:
One day ahead of a special congressional election to fill the seat vacated by Rep. Chris Lee (R) in a traditionally red district, a new PPP poll finds Democrat Kathy Hochul on top by six points.Among likely voters, Hochul came in at 42%, followed by Republican Jane Corwin at 36%, and Tea Party candidate Jack Davis at 13%.
Jon Terbush – Dem Hochul Leads By Six Points In NY-26 Special Election TPM 23 May 11
Concerns over the result have led the Republicans to dump large sums of money into the campaign in recent weeks, between them the NRCC and American Crossroads have spent over a million dollars on the race in an attempt to pull Corwin’s irons out of the fire.
Update: Hochul for the win. AP calls it for Hochul at 10:22PM EDT
John Kriesel (R) took a stand in Minnesota. I applaud his efforts, as a Republican. As a human being. As a lawmaker. He did the right thing to stand against folks who would deny folks the right to marry and choose their own lives. He did the right thing. He stood against a tide that shames us all.