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Remember Super PAC’s? The fear that Republicans would flood the market with money, so really bad Republican candidates would win over really good Democratic ones? Well. that hasn’t happened, and the reason why, is rather obvious after 2012. Why would one throw money away on a candidate who has zero chance of winning?
The key word is “zero”.
The Federal Election Commission has published the top 10 contributors of 2013. 8 lean Democratic, 2 lean Republican and one of those died this past year.
When money does not flow towards ones campaign because of one’s ideology, one’s ideology will remain just that: ideology. And that is what is happening. For those already tied to the losing side, conservatism, being shrill is the only method left in their bag of tricks to shake up campaign donations… For example if as a candidate I wade into a group of ten people and champion “We really have got to get rid of this president who is black” and one person says “here, here”, I know which of the ten to press for money. Hence we will hear the Tea Party get crazier, and crazier, and crazier, in their attempt to isolate those donars who will only donate if one meets the high bar set by a certain litmus crazy test…
But it will cost in the long run as this chart well shows…. Donors for 2013.
Compiled by Center for Public Integrity from FEC information. (Click image to show party affiliation)
The fears over Citizens United still remain. Just because no Republicans are on this list today, does not mean they lack the potential to donate next year. (Adelson and his wife donated $90 million in 2012). but what is telling is that many of the deep-pocketed GOP donors who ranked among the most generous givers during the 2012 election cycle, have yet to open their checkbooks for super PACs during this election cycle. Furthermore, the only 2 Republicans on this list, Bob Perry at number 6 who died, leaving a giant hole in Republican future finances, and the number 10 spot was only to funnel money in to Massachusetts GOP Senatorial candidate Gabriel Gomez, have since… disbanded….
Republicans are waiting for a more moderate, sensible, and decent human being to step up to the plate before they will think twice of donating any money. Currently there is only one, Rand Paul, who stands a chance.
It amazes me how quickly we forget. Our lives are so busy… Things blur by, pass in a moment to be replaced with a long line of new things to take their place… Did you know today was the 10th anniversary of Johnny’s passing?
I was curious an looked it up over the summer because my memory too had faded and I couldn’t remember which year it was. He passed September 12, 2003... The official cause was diabetes; however those who knew him, all knew he’d been in a hurry for some time to join June, who passed 4 months earlier….
As one watches the video, those of you old enough see an America we all knew as a child. Even if we weren’t country music fans at the time. That America is long gone, but one very similar has replaced it… full of economic hardships, angst, and self pursuit at the expense of inner peace. His music is more relevant today, perhaps than when we knew him.
I am surprised by the number of younger generation who live his songs, and know them, far better than those of the Beatles, Who, or Stones… His lyrics are simple, direct, and reach out to grasp that humanity that sometimes escapes us all.
it is ironical we were all talking about the VMA’s last week. For ten years ago, Johnny Cash was nominated and actually won, the VMA award for best cinematography for this video posted…
They called his name… And the winner is………………………………… Johnny Cash……….
All waited for his speech, but no one came up… Uncomfortable chatter as everyone looked around… After minutes someone came out from the back stage and said, Johnny is in hospital tonight and needs all of your prayers…. This award will be sent to him…..
Those prayers were answered just 15 days later…. He was in June’s arms before the night was over…..
Today is School Board Elections…Polls are open 10-8… If anyone is sponsored by Markell or Rodell or RTTT or WSFS, don’t vote for them.. If anyone is sponsored by DSEA, they are on the students side. They are safe.
So go out and vote like a goat… Be… B-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-D
We knew this but it is now being published… and so it is in the news.
The world is getting warmer… and we can now predict our climate by looking at map at 300 miles south and guessing what our weather will be from that…
Just as plate tectonics and Darwin’s origin of the species were able to lay the groundwork of reason for explaining puzzling observations, this simplifies what to expect from global warming rather startlingly.
Texas is now what we alway thought of when we considered the weather of Mexico; Oklahoma is now West Texas; Kansas is now Oklahoma; Nebraska is now Kansas; South Dakota is now Nebraska, North Dakota is now South Dakota: Southern Manitoba is now North Dakota…..
If West Texas had 3 days of rain, now Oklahoma is getting 3 days of rain; If it snowed 12 times in South Dakota, it is now doing the same in North Dakota… and so on.
So, to predict our heat, rain, winters, etc, our guide would be North Carolina. Longer growing seasons, some winters with no snow, hot summers…
However due to Global warming, the East Coast has a caveat. An anomaly so to speak and actually some relief from the North Carolina summer heat we would normally expect….
With the unprecedented melting of the Arctic and Greenland icecaps dumping its excess into the Labrador Current, that cold water drops South hugging the East Coast shoreline all the way down to North Carolina’s Outer Banks where it finally becomes neutralized… Therefore even though we have hotter air masses, the colder ocean temperatures creates a buffer against Global warming off the entire northeastern US.
Europe, Japan, and Alaska all experience the same mitigating effect, although with both Greenland and the Arctic Icecaps melting into the Labrador, the US East Coast gets a stronger volume of cold water. Call it our icy shower effect….
Once melting stops and the currents dry up, we return to the North Carolina scenario of the twentieth century….
Chart Courtesy of NOAA
So, we in Delaware really get the best climate on the East Coast. Warm winters, little or no snow, and cool breezy summers….. as well as a longer growing period, and… less dependence on fossil fuels for winter heating.
Gee, global warming isn’t so bad for Delaware after all…. Oh, the rising seas? There you go again… Why did you have to spoil the rosy picture I was painting?
Right Click for Full Image.
America gets up in arms when it’s privacy issues are at stake. How dare you know that about me! However when someone slips through our net and blows up a building or car, they exclaim, how did you not catch him in time?
Soon to be announced if not already out there, is our nation’s now no longer classified Trap Wire System. In the reports of its inception this package was held up as the ultimate surveillance tool. Cameras across the country would capture data from cities, highways, tolls, parks, public arenas, and everywhere else there is a camera, encrypt the data, then send it to a central point where it gets incorporated with all other data already compiled on every citizen. That data including public on line events such as dating services, chat rooms, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, as well as corporate files, employee rosters, and the vast cesspool of corporate data gleaned each and every time you use your credit card.
On every adult citizen, a computer can spit out a file of facts that even that citizen doesn’t know… The computing power is unparalleled. You are sitting at the stoplight, and for no reason a camera goes off, you think weird, no one tripped it. and instantly your face has been identified, your file pulled, and a program knows you buy Colgate toothpaste 39% of the time. And it knows you are on Zoloft. Your credit score is 593. And you are cheating on your spouse of 27 years with a 19 year old who gets something from Victoria Secret every month…..
A song comes on the radio and your mind jumps to it and you go on never thinking of that random event again…….
Of course there is the other side of the story. You pull up to the light right beside the dufus mentioned above. The same thing happens. You wonder too. Your picture triggers an alarm because your image was last seen in the lower Philippines having been traced there from Manila before paying for the boarding of a private boat off Gov. Lim Ave, then going dark 18 months ago. The alarm is because you were once an acquaintance on the third level of a Detroit sheik who propagated militancy. The file shows you worked with explosives on construction sites, you were terminated at one time being blamed for some missing C4. You denied you had anything to do with it. The camera notes that your car is low in back, and alerts other cameras on the route your are traveling that you will soon be entering their view. Your facebook page shows you liked Iran and support Assad of Syria. Your high school psychological profile says you were quiet and brooding. Your license plate is registered to a car reportedly at the gas station on Rt.273 undergoing lengthy repairs. You are unmarried. You don’t date, and your credit card has a large cash balance, yet you spend very little and that is only on food, gas, and a furnished apartment in Christiana Meadows. As you drive by a transponder, your new phone signal gets captured, and all your calls are now being pulled up. You spoke with a person of high interest, 2 times this morning, for a length of one minute each. Your visage is updated to all local cameras and all transportation portals, and put at the top of each face recognition program. Someone is dispatched to scout your apartment.
You see. That is the dilemma. We enjoy our safety, and abhor our loss of privacy.
If you haven’t noticed already, on your emails sometimes you have these buried within the routing: Abraxas and the others you see will say, Stratfor…. Bloggers are very used to seeing these on a rather regular basis. They are everywhere across the net.
One thing noticeable during the Olympics was that the Brits live this way all the time. They are used to it and prefer the cameras and intrusive software over a coordinated attack on their trains. And no one can blame them. But what the Brits have, and we don’t, is a set of rules regarding this capturing of information. If someone violates this code as did Murdoch, then the ramifications are severe; perhaps bringing down an entire corporate empire. The CEO, Vice President, and quite a few others all charged with illegal actions.
And that is the lesson we need to take. Accept the surveillance but know that if anyone, anyone breaks the code of privacy… you are going to be filthy rich for the rest of your entire life at their or their employer’s expense…. For if that is truly the case, going back to the original story up top, if you got busted for your too hot to fail 19 year old lover, and lost your spouse, for $83 million, you really wouldn’t mind too much… My bet? You would see it as a blessing in disguise. And if you still loved your spouse, don’t worry. When you are worth $83 million, she won’t go far.
This has to become the future of surveillance. Here is why.
I’ll use Facebook as an example. I can always tell when one a friend has to hand over their password to their employer. Whereas they used to be so lively, responsive, and fun, they suddenly stop posting anything showing their personality. Their presence on line becomes reduced to “look at my kid”; “here is my dog”. Whereas you used to be able to talk to them about their spouse, their parents, how they were feeling, how they liked their job, how they were doing in the lover department, how their head was, what hopes and dreams they possessed, how drunk they got, suddenly their presence is as chilled as someone passing Checkpoint Charlie in the 60’s. There is a rigidity that they must conform to. There is a corporate mentality that they must express, and most deal with it by staying silent.
That is not what America is about. America is about freedom, about life…. about liberty….. and about the pursuit of happiness…… What once was open air on the internet is now poisoned with carbon particles, so much so that it is hard to breathe.
We can’t lose our nation’s fun-loving identity. And we can’t stop protecting ourselves by our newer and newer technology. So, what we can do (and we can easily do this), is not to constrain the surveillance, but penalize any misuse of the data that gets captured.
And make the punitive damages so huge, so grand, so big, that American citizens will actually enjoy having their privacy breached when it comes time for the judge to make the monetary judgment. Which means we need to rethink all things private, and that includes the intrusiveness of the press into private lives…
I’m always saddened when someone suffers because of something got out of control on their social media, and everyone gangs up on line, saying, “well, you shouldn’t have put it on the internet.”
Really? REALLY? A person should never have a light moment with an acquaintance, one of those few joyous moments we as people treasure forever, because someone they don’t know, someone they never met, might hack into their account, and spread it across the world?
That is ridiculous. The internet IS us. If we want a fun moment, we have the right to exercise it.. Back when I was growing up, laws were passed and on the books to control the positions that went on within the bedroom. That has fortunately faded away into being ridiculous. The same needs to happen on the internet. And the easiest way, the simplest way, is to have huge, gigantic fines, ones that are so big they will bankrupt anyone, and everyone who breaches another’s privacy.
So what if some entity knows you use Colgate 39% of the time. If no one else ever knows that they know it, as far as impacting anything in the real world, their knowledge of that minutia, doesn’t matter.
We need to start the process. We first announce the problem; we offer a solution; we educate the public; we elect responsible legislators, we pressure responsible legislators, we get legislation signed, and then, we relax and really enjoy the rest of our lives.
It is past time that our personal privacy be now given a price tag that is equal to what it is worth. Something in the range of tens of millions comes to mind….. Hell, you can get $90 million for spilling hot coffee in your lap…..
Life is old there, older than the trees, younger than the mountains….
Someone mentioned in conversation recently, which I believe was centered around music, that John Denver died too young…..
Sad to say, but with Tuesday’s primary results, he is perhaps better off not to have to forbear his association with that state right now.
Just in case you haven’t heard, West Virginia primaried a felon in prison against Obama, and the felon got 41% of the vote.
There is a thread over at Delaware Liberal whose comment stream should be read.
I’m sure West Virginians thought they were making a statement about Obama… When actually they were making a sad statement about themselves… I’m sure West Virginians were trying to say, we’d rather have a felon then have Obama.. They would be wise to remember their Lord and Savior, standing next to Pilate, was dissed by the very people he’d tried to teach and save, for a felon by the name of Barrabas. Instead, they made themselves, as did the Jews on the first Good Friday, look like laughingstocks among the stupidest people imaginable.
Emotions are transient, but a vote is permanent. Seriously, West Virginia? 41% of you would put a felon in the White House? What does that say about you? That you hate the United States of America so much, you don’t care if a felon gets in and steals everything? That you seriously don’t understand government to the point that you would vote in a felon, who himself is banned from voting, to run the country?
Are you seriously that stupid, to think, that voting in a felon sends a message? Well it does, and that message it sends, makes every incest joke, every hillbilly joke, every racist joke, every Goober joke, every hick joke, every dumbass joke, every West Virginian joke, a lot more believable now.
Those of us who’ve defended you, talking about your higher morals, your higher standards of ethics, you willingness to give others the benefit of the doubt, your deep religious nature, are now shutting the fuck up. You’ve made so just defending you, makes US the butt of jokes.. Well it ain’t happening here..
I’m not defending you. I can’t. No one can. What you did was so stupid, you’ve probably damaged your state more than you will ever know…
Think about it. You just ruined WVU… From this point forward, at every televised game, every announcer will jump on the crack your state almost voted in a felon, and an ugly one at that, to be president of the United States of America. It doesn’t matter how good your football team is. Everyone is going to be talking about how stupid people in West Virginia are. How backwards. How retarded. How ridiculous.
It will of course, be blamed, (as it always is by Jay Leno), on you guys fucking your cousins, making them pregnant, then marrying them and inbreeding 18 children who will then repeat the process. But after your decision, in people’s minds, it’s the only way that rational people will be able to explain what you’ve done.
And when your pride and joy, WVU competes for top notch players? Put yourself in a prospective player’s shoes the minute after he tells his girlfriend he’s going to WVU. What young man wants to be labeled as a dumb hillbilly? Not me. I’ll take Clemson. or Duke, or Kentucky… I won’t play for a team carrying the name of a state that voted for a felon to be president of the United States of America. Without top notch players, how will your team win? Without winning, who is going to pay big television money to watch. West Virginia used to the the brunt of sports jokes. I remember back when Penn State beat them 50 times in a row? Well, get used to that again.
Do you realize your action probably cost your state university, WVU, at least $400,000,000 over the next ten years? It will take that long before people finally forget, or stop blaming you, and move on.
And what corporate interest is now going to move into West Virgina. What business will want your state’s name on their corporate letterhead. “Yes, our headquarters are in the state that voted 40% to put a felon in the White House”. Do you realize you’ve probably cost your state a minimum of $10 billion over the next ten years for your action?
What were you thinking? That this would embarrass Obama and make you look tough?
Well, it backfired. Everyone is talking instead about how stupid you are. About how idiotic, dumb, hateful, disgusting, sick, creepy, unDeliverancable, (even the word suck-ass was used) you are…
Sorry, … you guys did it. You must now live by your actions. Don’t waste your breath trying to defend your stance here or elsewhere. You just cost WVU the National football title. You just lost any hope of economic recovery. Whatever it was you thought… it is now your problem.
There were less harmful ways. You could have not voted. You could have written in. But your choice, to vote for the stupidest looking person on the face of the planet, and a felon to boot, as your choice for President… well, you will have to lay in the bed you made.
It didn’t hurt Obama. It actually helped. Everyone who supports Romney, is now being identified with you… and if they’re seeing in that picture what we’re seeing, they don’t want be in the same room with you, on the same team as you, or in the same political tent as you…
Ewwwwwwwww…. You are so disgusting. Don’t even want to look at you. Get back in your hole.
kavips 