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In the interest of having my thoughts written down and expanded upon somewhere, here I go! I voted Hillary Clinton predominately because I think Donald Trump is a whack job, unfit for President, and that Hillary better represents my social values. Going into Election Day, even though media coverage leaned strongly towards Hillary, my thinking […]
The caste system in India. Everything you didn’t know. Excellent lecture from Arundhati Roy.
Oregon health exchange technology troubles run deep due to mismanagement, early decisions. Great level of detail on how exactly Oracle / Cover Oregon has managed to misuse $90 million to date, and not ship a functional product. Good capital J journalism from the Oregonian.
NSA slides explain the PRISM data-collection program. “Through a top-secret program authorized by federal judges working under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the U.S. intelligence community can gain access to the servers of nine Internet companies for a wide range of digital data.” Oh my god.
As a wife and mother, I LOVE this binder. It keeps me in my place, allows me to get dinner ready on time, AND only costs 72% of the more masculine version. Some people might think it’s sexist, but sheesh, I’m not binding my feet, just my brain. Extra bonus, if you sit on it just right, it can act as an effective method of birth control! Full disclosure: I submitted this under my husband’s account, with his full permission. He is the head of our household, and the owner of the binder.
Avery Durable View Binder, 1 Inch Rings, White, 1 Binder (17012)
by Avery
Leah: “I just thought of the best costume idea in case we decide to do the run like hell half marathon on Sunday”
Me: “Pumpkins?”
Leah: “No, you be Mitt Romney and ill be a binder full of women. :)”
This time he covered a lot more ground and was willing to talk about the mundane details of presidential existence. “You have to exercise,” he said, for instance. “Or at some point you’ll just break down.” You also need to remove from your life the day-to-day problems that absorb most people for meaningful parts of their day. “You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits,” he said. “I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.” He mentioned research that shows the simple act of making decisions degrades one’s ability to make further decisions. It’s why shopping is so exhausting. “You need to focus your decision-making energy. You need to routinize yourself. You can’t be going through the day distracted by trivia.” The self-discipline he believes is required to do the job well comes at a high price. “You can’t wander around,” he said. “It’s much harder to be surprised. You don’t have those moments of serendipity. You don’t bump into a friend in a restaurant you haven’t seen in years. The loss of anonymity and the loss of surprise is an unnatural state. You adapt to it, but you don’t get used to it—at least I don’t.”
Michael Lewis — Obama’s Way
“I want to stand next to Mitt for my benefit, not his,” Mrs. Romney’s statement read. “Mitt is so human and so warm, I can’t imagine being away from his warm humanity for as long as two hours. That’s how warm a human he is. Really warm and really human.”
According to a recent Rasmussen poll, only 17 percent of Americans believe our national government possesses the consent of the governed. These numbers may not seem shocking, because they’ve been low for so long. But not always. In 1964, Pew found 77 percent of Americans expected their government to do “the right thing” most of the time.
So the American people think our democracy doesn’t work. But there are also many objective signs that it’s failing. One is that Americans don’t vote as much as citizens of most other countries, including developing countries. In 2010, only 37.5 percent voted in Congressional elections. There are signs that young people are voting less than they used to. Why? As Rock the Vote found in a 2010 poll, it is very simple: Because they think it doesn’t matter who wins, that no real change is possible. They think the power of special interests is simply too great. And they are right.
Elliot Gerson — To Make America Great Again, We Need to Leave the Country