Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts

Monday, February 21, 2011

Two Minute Conservative (Political)


REVIEWED BY: Marguerite Zelle

MY RECOMMENDATION: YES

AMAZON SUBSCRIPTION LINK: Two Minute Conservative, by Adrian Vance

WEB ADDRESS: http://adrianvance.blogspot.com/

BLOG DESCRIPTION: Conservative ideas, thinking, science and humor for radio and TV hosts, opinion page editors and you. Arm yourself with powerful concepts, phrases and gags that disarm, dismember and disembowel those who would destroy America for all with their good intentions and goofy thinking. Liberals are people who have to think they are smarter because they know they are not. We can help them with clear visions of the way it ought to be.

MY REVIEW: Since I'm a conservative - mostly - I enjoyed this blog a lot, as the author sets the issues out clearly and in-depth. (As example the blog entry on California below. Part time teachers given full time pension benefits? Prison guards able to retire at age 50 with 6 figure pensions? (Well, one hopes its after they started work at 20 and put in 30 full years....)

Anyway, if you want to really know what's going on in the world today, check out this blog. The author posts daily.

Here's his bio from the blog:
Trained as a science teacher, writer, producer and broadcaster, 325 non-theatrical film credits, 100 magazine feature and column credits, 10 books, many radio shows, inventor, US Patent 7,855,061

Sample post:
The Wrath of Grapes
With apologies to John Steinbeck and Henry Fonda, who was a neighbor in my Bel Air days, the time has come when California looks like the famous movie running backwards and all the credit goes to our again Governor Moonbeam Brown.

God, fate or the fickle finger thereof, have put Mr. Brown smack-dab back at the scene of his crime of inventing the public employee unions that now have the state, county and municipalities indebted to them for $500 billion. Yes, half a trillion Dollars of unfunded pension liabilities to insure prison guards retire at age 50 with six figure pensions and all the way to the DMV. Part time teachers are given full pension credit for their service and the benefits just keep going. All on public employee union contracts, some really bizarre.

The city of Berkeley Council is voting on a $20,000 benefit for sex change surgery into the city paid-for health plan for its municipal employees. San Francisco has had this for 20 years. Berkeley is well off as it collects taxes from University of California employees including property taxes from the 18,000 well-paid UC employees. Most other California municipalities and counties are wrestling with bankruptcy. We are approaching an “event horizon” of fiscal black holes for 58 counties and hundreds of municipalities. Visalia has fallen and it is only a matter of time for the rest.

At a recent press conference Mr. Brown was asked about pension reform. He directed reporters to his website. When they examined it they could not find one word on the issue! Yes, “Governor Moonbeam is back!”

Governor Brown’s education funding plan ignores the California State Teachers Retirement System which has doubled its pension liability due to the downturn and mismanagement. Taxpayers are on the hook to make up the guaranteed difference negotiated by the unions but, the bankruptcy solution is on the table.

A more serious form of public employee rebellion is now seen in police departments withdrawing services. The Fremont, California police department no longer answers calls unless you have a name or badge number to give to the RoboCop automated answering officer.

In a state famous for viticulture we can say we are living the wrath of grapes.

RECENT POSTS:
--Flash in the Pits
--Cutting the Cheese
--What the Hell is Going On?
--They'll Come From Outer Space
--Here Comes the Sun
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Reviews published every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
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Check out the following blogs:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Volcano Seven: Treasure and Treasure Hunters
Rush Limbaugh Report

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Cubipolidata (politics, Cuba)


REVIEWED BY: Ms. Cairo

MY RECOMMENDATION: YES, with reservations

AMAZON SUBSCRIPTION LINK: Cubapolidata

WEB ADDRESS: Despite its claim to being a "leading blog," it looks to me like this blog is only a couple of weeks old. When I subscribed to it I only got one page worth of posts - normally I get five pages worth.

Also, the posts are very short, a couple of paragraphs at most, hardly in-depth news. There are text links within each post, so that if you're visiting its actual website you can check out further information, but it's too time consuming to try to do that on the web.

Nevertheless if you're interested about what's happening in Cuba, only 90 miles off the Florida coast, check it out.

BLOG DESCRIPTION: CUBAPOLIDATA is a leading blog on Cuba's politico-military affairs. The blog is read by government officials, academics, and analysts from the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Congress, related institutions, international news organizations, and government agencies around the world.

MY REVIEW:

RECENT POSTS:
--A Cuban military “comeback”?
--Russian spy ring with a Cuban link? (Updated)
--Major tech breakthrough will affect nickel mining
--Academic ousted from CCP for criticizing gov’t corruption

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Ms. Cairo writes several blogs including:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Topical Murder and Dated Death

Friday, June 25, 2010

Pharyngula (science, religion, politics)


REVIEWED BY: Ms. Cairo

MY RECOMMENDATION: YES

AMAZON SUBSCRIPTION LINK: Pharyngula, by Seed Media Group

WEB ADDRESS: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/

BLOG DESCRIPTION: Seed Magazine presents Pharyngula, a scientific and freethinking blog named after an important period of embryonic development. Pharyngula is a mixed bag of science news with a liberal slant, as well as other topics guaranteed to make you think and make you laugh.

MY REVIEW: I enjoy this blog, for all that I'm a Republican (although an atheist one) and the author is a Liberal, but an atheist also, so he gets a pass on his politics.

The author is PZ Myers, a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris. He works with zebrafish in the field of evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo), and also cultivates an interest in cephalopods. (He also has a biography on Wikipedia!)

The blog makes for very interesting reading, and I encourage all biology and cephalopod fans, and atheists, and anyone with an interest in good writing, to read it. As for the politics - regardless of your views, it's always good to read the other side...

Sample post
How Mormons will conquer the world
There's a documentary coming out about how the Mormons influenced California's Proposition 8, and Salon has an interview with the director, Reed Cowan. He makes the point that it wasn't just that they raised buckets of money, but that they had willing volunteers.

Nobody does it better than the Mormons. Money is one thing. What outsiders don't understand is the volunteer aspect: the "means and time" trigger language that comes from the temple, and how it literally played to their obedience.

Their greatest asset is the obedience of their people. They had people signed up to go street by street and house by house. They knew who to take with them and were extremely organized.

What is it about those two words, "time and means," that triggers obedience?

You're told in the temple that what you are about to do, your eternal salvation hinges on it. God will not be mocked. Then you see a character named Satan who basically threatens to take away your eternal salvation if you don't live up to covenants you're making. When they used the trigger language of the temple, most of the Mormon faithful got it. Your salvation and the salvation of humanity depends on it. It's inferred that you will lose everything if you don't obey.

If there's one thing religion is good at, it's using fear to make people conform and obey. The question is whether uniformity and mass action at the behest of a few authoritarians is good for humanity…and I think not. At least not the kind of humanity I want to live among.


RECENT POSTS:
--How Mormons will conquer the world
--Friday Cephalopod: Eye of the cuttlefish
--Great Beards: Darwin!
--Irreligiosophical podcast
--Octopuses do not have psychic powers

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Ms. Cairo writes several blogs including:
Seaborn: Oceanography Blog
Star Trek Report: Space Sciences
Topical Murder and Dated Death