I thought a nominee's 'October Surprise' strategy was supposed to be....

....in October. Can anyone explain Gov. Romney's early strategy here?

Oh and another thing.....



I thought Republican candidate Romney was.....um .....Republican! When I went to bed yesterday he was a Republican! Didn't he speak at that RNC down in Tampa?

Now Gov. Romney is fighting for 'Four More Years'! Do we automatically get his Electoral Votes too or do we have to wait for him to sign them over to President Obama
or somesuch?

Geese Louise, just when I thought I had some understanding of the American election process everything gets all complicated.

If by sunrise tomorrow I awaken to a world where the Free Republic has an automatic 'Spell Check' feature MY head will explode!

I would have given them an apple.

Not long after 9/11 a request from NY asked for ideas for a memorial. Here is mine.

In the center of the area where the towers fell I would like to have seen made an apple, a ten to fifteen foot tall clear solid glass apple.

In the center of this apple I would liked to have seen a red heart, no not one of those stylized ones we see on cards on Valentine's day, instead a glass human heart, double sized with veins and arteries fading as they reached out into the glass of the apple.

On the outside of this apple in an etched band, a band between knee to head high, I would like to have seen the full names of each victim. I would like to have seen those names not etched but embossed, standing out from the glass, clear and strong, easy to see, easy to touch and easy to see through to that heart in the center of that apple.

Constructed around and enclosing it, a building only slightly taller than our Apple. It would be wide enough to allow three or four to walk around the apple shoulder to shoulder-not very wide at all because any larger diminishes the private personal experience I would see for this memorial.

On the inner wall of this building, shelves, cubby-holes and cork boarding for personal items and photos left behind. These items to be cleaned off monthly, whisked away to a second building used as a museum-a bridge of sorts from the past to the future.

This building would be lit only from the Apple itself and black on the outside, circular in shape. White noise added to drown out any sounds from outside NY.

A technology we currently possess would light this building from the inside. During the day, daylight would be brought in via fiber-optics, lighting the apple from the inside out.

Thousands of these fiber optic cables, one for each victim would be positioned on the new structures which replaced the Twin Towers.
These would catch the suns light.

These fibre optic cables would channel the sun's beams of light through to the heart of that apple then burst forth to illuminate many hundreds of the names on the outside of that Apple.

Those beams of light would brighten or fade as the sun moved guaranteeing that at some point each name was lit at least once per day if not much more oftener. At night and on severely cloudy days this would be done by electronic means, ideally imitating the natural light.

This then would be my apple. A tribute saying that these people are forever remembered and be forever in the heart of the big apple that is New York.

This memorial would be a place for those who visit to have an up close and quietly personal experience.

I would add this one touch: upon request a photo of a selected name, lit up by natural light given to any who should ask, free of charge and paid for by WE THE PEOPLE'S tax dollars. That's not such a big thing to ask of us I think.

That is the apple I would have given them.

Gotta love The Tea Party!

When I say: Three piece Canadian band, incredible vocals, incredible guitar, incredible bass, incredible drums, and non mainstream songs you would be right to think RUSH! Well not to take anything away from them, they are high on my list too but....

If you have never been exposed to this other Canadian three piece band and you need to rock out a bit...(or if you want to see a Jim Morrison ghost come to life) here is a live version of The River as performed by The Tea Party
http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=related&v=fw2kNHlB1KM

Difference between Conservatives and Progressives?

This is just my take on this.

When presented with facts that conflict with ones ideology, progressives will look to their ideology as the place to make changes.

When presented with facts that conflict with their ideology, conservatives will look to the facts as the place to make changes.

Take any example you wish, we progressives are open minded,we are willing to change how we see things as fresh facts and data are presented to us.

Otoh we batter conservatives with fact after fact, chart and graph after chart and graph only to be frustrated as our efforts are dismissed out of hand.

My favorite example is to point out the massive election fraud that is going on. I couple my argument with the YouTube video of Paul Weyrich stating that Republican chances go up as voting goes down.
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=VktGRDndLb4

There are tons of links proving that Republicans are preventing millions of legal voters, primarily Democrats from being able to vote. Imo, this proves that the Republican Party is destroying our very democracy!

Yet, when presented with all of this, instead of examining their ideology, my Republican friends choose to dismiss the data and in one case make the claim that Paul Weyrich is being taken out of context!

My point, at risk of broad brushing my fellow Americans, most conservatives are closed minded and will not willingly open up to change. We progressives share in this too because we can't seem to stop trying to make them change by using a tactic which simply has not worked!

A different tactic is therefore needed. I am open to suggestions.

Up next at DNC: Bill Clinton here is CSPAN link, watch live.

It is the REPUBLICAN economy, stupid.

When you hear someone try to blame our President for the economy please point out to them that it is not his economy, it is a Republican economy.The Republican's agenda from the start was to defeat President Obama by pinning him with a bad economy with little to no job growth.

As we know, the President proposes, the Congress disposes. The House of Representatives is currently under Republican hands, THEY control the purse strings. So what has this Republican House done when it comes to job creation? From what I can tell after reading Mike Stanhill's observations, NOTHING! http://republicanjobcreation.com/

Not only have they NOT created any jobs they have deliberately obstructed our economy from growing! Please read Mike Pridmire's take on this over at the Daily Kos.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/04/1127453/-Republican-Obstructionism-is-mostly-responsible-for-our-economy

So next time you hear someone try to tell you that it is the 'economy stupid', be sure to let them know that it is the REPUBLICAN economy, not the Obama economy.