September 30, 2008 :: staff :: One Comment
ACORN is an organization that unites and coordinates the efforts of multiple community-organizing groups around the country, focusing originally on housing-availability and inequity issues, and expanding into healthcare rights, civil rights, voter registration and electoral and state-representation reform. The acronym stands for the Association of Community Organization for Reform Now. It was founded in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1970, in response to the need to deal with a number of civil rights issues in the city.
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September 29, 2008 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
With the nation facing its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and voices in private finance calling for a major bailout, with the Republican president, his financial advisers, leaders of both parties in Congress calling for a $700 billion bailout package, the US House has voted down the rescue package. The stock market closed with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 777.68 points. Talks of a “done deal” are obviously over, and the administration and Congressional leaders will now be starting over.
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September 25, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
I want to write about hope, about the nature of optimism and how closely linked the quality of imagination is to our ability to conceive of, work for and see through meaningful improvements to the human condition. I want to write about it because it is such a vital commodity in our times, such a spiritual enigma and a challenge to our political systems, but then one glaring fact becomes clear that seems to limit what can be said about hope: that vital spiritual resource does not stand alone, but is linked in every case to human specifics, inseparable from what we seek to apply to it, and so hope is different to all people, even in its most essential manifestations.
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September 24, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Una ola de misticismo financiero entró en los mercados financieros hace unas décadas, y poco a poco ha ido provocando crisis y revueltos, pero sólo después de haberse contagiado a los políticos de Washington, Londres y Pekín, ha llegado a ser una catástrofe económico in potentia. Matemáticamente, hay que negociar con lo que hay, con recursos finitos, y planificar sistemas de contabilidad que tomen en cuenta que riesgo no es dinero ganado, sino dinero por ganar si todo sale bien. Parece una lógica más que evidente, pero para los místicos de la contabilidad no-finita, se ha convertido en moda anticuada y normativa molesta.
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September 17, 2008 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
One of the “pillars of Wall Street”, 158-year-old Lehman Brothers investment bank, has entered bankruptcy proceedings, in order to prevent creditors from seizing its assets. The move came after Barclays and Bank of America withdrew offers to buy out the stumbling giant, and the US government refused to intervene to protect the firm. Merrill Lynch, known for “bringing Wall Street to Main Street”, was sold to Bank of America for less than half of what it was worth at the beginning of 2007. Amid concern that the massive insurance firm AIG could be the next to fall, the Federal Reserve to issue an $85 billion loan, taking an 80% stake.
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September 11, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
El Onze de Setembre, en Catalunya, es un día de luto nacional, cuando se recuerda que en esta fecha en el año 1714, Catalunya perdió sus leyes y su autonomía ancestral, sus usatges, un sistema legal que databa del medioevo tardío. Y en celebrar el día, se celebran valores básicos y la posibilidad de comunidad, de una identidad cultural-política y una soberanía sobre el destino compartido. El once de septiembre, 1973, fue el día trágico en que la nación chilena se vio sumergida de repente en una dictadura militar que usaría el terror, la tortura y el asesinato extra-oficial para “desaparecer” a los disidentes y romper la democracia. Es un día contencioso, porque los golpistas tienen sus seguidores todavía, porque sigue existiendo el mito de una “dictadura suave”.
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September 8, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Sen. John McCain’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention was meant to be his answer to the stadium-sized explosion of his rival’s historic address, his moment to demonstrate his own version of leadership. It is now being mocked by political commentators as a ham-fisted attempt at catching the wave. McCain performed rhetorical acrobatics to try to both be like Obama and be like Bush, while supposedly offering something of his own entirely distinct brand of politics. Botched stage-craft was an added drag on the speech’s resonance.
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September 5, 2008 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
My heartfelt thanks to all of you who helped me win this nomination and stood by me when the odds were long. I won’t let you down. To Americans who have yet to decide who to vote for, thank you for your consideration and the opportunity to win your trust. I intend to earn it.
Finally, a word to Sen. Obama and his supporters. We’ll go at it over the next two months. That’s the nature of these contests, and there are big differences between us. But you have my respect and admiration. Despite our differences, much more unites us than divides us. We are fellow Americans, an association that means more to me than any other. We’re dedicated to the proposition that all people are created equal and endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights. No country ever had a greater cause than that. And I wouldn’t be an American worthy of the name if I didn’t honor Sen. Obama and his supporters for their achievement.
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September 4, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska accepted the Republican party’s nomination for vice president in at their convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. She said she was looking forward to the “challenge of a tough fight against competent opponents”, but wasted no time getting to the red meat. She said she was joining a ticket that would “serve and defend America”, and that John McCain put the “security of the country that he loves” ahead of his own political fate, reminding the audience that McCain said he “would rather lose an election than lose a war”.
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September 3, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), Al Gore’s choice for VP in the 2000 election, and still a self-proclaimed Democrat —though he was voted out in his party’s primary, before winning back his Senate seat as an independent— addressed the Republican National Convention last night, in St. Paul, Minnesota. Lieberman enthusiastically endorsed Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and said his goal is to work as hard as possible to make him the next president of the United States.
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September 3, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Eight years after the debacle of the 2000 presidential election, the state of Florida still has not secured its balloting system against errors, missed votes, flawed counts and tampering. In the wake of the flawed electronic counts from the 2006 Buchanan-Jennings race, Sarasota opted for paper ballots, which are counted by optical scanners. The glitch encountered in a recent primary occurred when absentee ballots entering the system would not transfer to the main tally on a central server.
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September 2, 2008 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
The Republican party kicked off its nominating convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, last night, with a heavy focus on the plight of those displaced by Hurricane Gustav. Fortunately, the storm did not turn out to be “the storm of the century”, but it did leave over 1 million homes and businesses without electricity along the Gulf coast. So in an effort to avoid anything resembling the perceived indifference with which the catastrophic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was met, the GOP has devoted significant time to voicing its support for efforts to send aid to the Gulf coast.
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September 2, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Terry McAuliffe, former chairman of Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and Howard Dean’s predecessor as chairman of the DNC, has said 2008 will be “the most vicious campaign we have ever faced”. Already shadowy “527 groups” and PACs are running ads and sponsoring the publication of books full of disproven rumor and innuendo, with the openly stated aim of “defeating Barack Obama”. Author Jerome Corsi, who has written a best-selling anti-Obama tome, openly admitted, against the wishes of his publisher, that his book is not intended to be factual, but rather to further the anti-Obama agenda, with the aim of influencing the outcome of the November election.
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