The Heart of Obama's Kansas Speech

Full text of President Obama’s economic speech in Osawatomie, Kans. - The Washington Post: "Remember that in those years, thanks to some of the same folks who are running Congress now, we had weak regulation and little oversight, and what did that get us? Insurance companies that jacked up people’s premiums with impunity, and denied care to the patients who were sick. Mortgage lenders that tricked families into buying homes they couldn’t afford. A financial sector where irresponsibility and lack of basic oversight nearly destroyed our entire economy.

We simply cannot return to this brand of your-on-your-own economics if we’re serious about rebuilding the middle class in this country. We know that it doesn’t result in a strong economy. It results in an economy that invests too little in its people and its future. It doesn’t result in a prosperity that trickles down. It results in a prosperity that’s enjoyed by fewer and fewer of our citizens."

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Global Online Privacy

Video Shows How System Screws Home Owners

'Occupy Our Homes' Protesters Highlight Foreclosures Nationwide | Common Dreams: "Hull said he owed more than $230,000 on the home and hadn't made a payment since last year. Hennepin County records show Bank of America sold the property in August to U.S. Bank for $83,700.

"This is the typical situation," said Steve Fletcher, director of Minnesota Neighborhoods Organizing for Change, a local community organizing group. "The banks are being incredibly bad about negotiating with homeowners [for loan modifications] and then they turn around and sell the house at a huge loss at a sheriff's sale.""

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The more we see the more we understand. Click for more text and the vireo.


Global Online Privacy

Oil Contamination

Noxious Oil: Oil contamination has devastated the lives of the people in the Niger Delta.

Global Online Privacy

Oil contamination has devastated the lives of the people in the Niger Delta

Oil contamination has devastated the lives of the people in the Niger Delta -- destroyed their livelihoods, undermined their access to clean water and food, and put their health at serious risk. Hundreds of thousands of people are affected, particularly the poorest. The failure by the oil industry to properly address pollution exacerbates human suffering and environmental damage. For example, the two major oil spills which occurred in 2008 in Bodo, Ogoniland continued for weeks before they were stopped, and three years on Shell has still not cleaned up the pollution.

In August 2011, following its landmark assessment of oil contamination in Ogoniland, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) found that Shell has failed to effectively clean up oil pollution for years, and identified $1 billion as the start-up amount needed to establish an independent fund to clean up pollution in Ogoniland. Call on Shell to OWN UP to the reality of pollution in the Niger Delta, and PAY UP for the costs of a CLEAN UP operation -- the full $1 billion recommended by the UNEP report.

via Take Action Now - Amnesty International USA.

I think they both could be eclipsed

INFOGRAPHIC: Google+ Is Catching Up To Facebook And Here's Why:

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This is a game that is always played and that always ignores the third option, another entry that eclipses the two. Anything that delivers everything people want is the new thing that blows older things out of the water. As soon as there is an entity that can do it better than Facebook or Google it will eclipse both. I think one clue to this is user defined searches - the evident need that underlies Quora - and a means of gathering and ordering all relevant data. I harbor a guess that it might be Amazon that finds the way.


Global Online Privacy

Obama's Legitimacy

Obama's Way: Let's say what's really going on?:

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Obama Media Did Cain In?

Rightbloggers Declare Former Future President Herman Cain a (What Else?) Victim of Obama, Media (Updated) - New York News - Runnin' Scared:

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Cain has not been done in
He has done what many do
Allowed his celebrity to lift him up
Regardless of the skeletons
All media find
That would be all media including even FOX
Cain chose to stonewall
And evidently his wife will not complain out loud
He is a household word now
Hardly reason to complain
He never could have won the Presidancy
His victory is whatever terms he comes to
Within his heart and mind
And given how we are
I'm sure the media will be most kind


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Semeiotic theory is necessarily first among sciences

"For "semiotics" to be an effective unifying discipline it must not isolate itself. Unfortunately, it's too late. By a series of missteps, related cross-discipline confusions, and plain term usage, "semiotics" *is* isolated.

"The irony is that semeiotic theory is necessarily first among sciences. Yet its current position is worse than last. If you surveyed most scientists today that understand the discipline I suspect they would consider it irrelevant, many more have never heard of it.

"And I do not think the situation can be rescued. Any serious analysis of the situation must, I think, draw this conclusion.

"The right approach I have concluded is to drive a resurgence with renewed interest in logic and its foundations, expanding the scope of the discipline to encompass the concerns that rest within what we call "semeiotic theory." Logic has a role that is better appreciated and can be driven toward a useful expansion and a clarification by semeiotic theory." - Steven Ericsson-Zenith

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