Dan Rather's lawsuit upheld dismissed ...

It looks as though Dan's lawsuit being dismissed was an open and closed case. Mr. Rather had just not had his contract renewed after it ended, as their (CBS) nightly news show was third in the rankings after many years. That alone is all that is needed to refuse to re-negotiate a contract. He was also offered a pretty highly paid "office" with no role in producing and reporting the news, which he turned down. I like his fight and I wish there was some osrt of Dan Rather clause in some law somewhere when it relates to employment contracts for major media reporters and producers and the largest national broadcasting companies, but in the end I'll bet
you that there is some truth to people's speculation that his often coy liberal bias in reporting a story, where the script handed to him is even biasedly bent towards telling a very neutral or misleadingly blandly vague on content story. Kudos, Mr. Rather. You've inspired me greatly.
As for the reporting on W's National Guard record, and the possiblity of a link between that reporting and your contract not being renewed, all I can say is there is your Truth to tell, to
win the hearts and minds of the smarter Americans who understand what's going on in the world and believe in you, and need you .... to tell it from the mountaintop."

Google getting into the energy business ...

Why wasn't this ever reported much ...?

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/10/25/contra/index5.html

The GOP Lies about small businesses and taxes ...

http://crooksandliars.com/media/play/
wmv/7391/2618

This is an editoral blog entry in reaction to this
CNN interview.

Mitch McConnell, is the Minority Leader, top Republican of the 110th Cngress, and leading Senator from the state of Kentucky, my home state.

He is married to Elaine Chao, who was the Secretary of Labor under George W. Bush's administration from the beginning to the end, the only cabinet member to stay the whole duration. I'd say, a little ironic, a chinese person as the secretary of LABOR in the U.S., notwithstanding the double sided coin of strategic employment of diversity at the highest levels of appointments in the Bush Administration.

Nonetheless, these two are career politicians in every sense of the word. They are the epitomy of towing the administration's line and doing what they are told in order to gain political favor with the powers that be, a give and take game that is generally, I'd say, how everyday politics works. Not that they don't likely whole heartedly believe in their stances. And, in 1996, Mitch McConnell won a 100% conservative rating from the American Conservative Union, something no one ever supposedly achieved before. You may take note that there is no such thing as an American Liberal Union that is ranking and rating people in the abstract of some supposed
quantitative belief altruism.

But this is not what I even take issue with, no, my immediate and realistic concern is for the fact
that these guys with their supposed high credentials and esteem are influencing the minds of young people and spewing at the very least massive distortions of the real data that exists on these matters. But let's face it, what they are really doing is outright lying in an attempt to advertise popularly held notions of individual self-determinism as a part of the "conservative" mindset, and twist the facts to support their constituents political goals. i.e. - less taxes for the rich. The rich, who overwhelmingly, no longer come from a class of people who through hard work and determination created something that would become an empire, but instead a class of people who come from at least the top 5% of wealthy Americans in order to be able to buy their way into the inner circles of other rich people in order to to do "business", i.e. - an oligarchy.

Do't get me wrong, I understand that the mass of the population as a whole is where the bread
and butter of the bulk of tax revenue comes from, and that the "progressive" tax system we have is somewhere between an idealized Keynesian capitalism and European style socialism. But unlike European countries, the bulk of "profiteering" does not come from the masses but rather a very concentrated few in an exponentially growing manner as money and the power of money continue to grip control of our politics, legislators, court systems, and every other
aspect of our daily lives and societal infrastructure; to the point I would say that we are becoming a European style socialism except not with a government of by and for the people at the reigns (which is one thing mankind did a good job of creating, for fairness and inclusion, I'd say, back before we had modern entertainment accoutrements to beguile us), but now,
rather, large companies, corporations, and corrupt infrastructures run the show, all of which play by a very different game.

One that is finally coming to light in the eyes of everyone in the country, that continuing to make personal profits of exponentially growing porportion at the expense of everything else in this broken capitalism, is the de facto bottom line of these "companies". It's time to go back to an 1870's conservative mindset, that put many limitations on the "free" markets, out of common sense. Nowadays we have an oligarchy making it up as they go along. Note to all you Wharton School of Business hopefuls. There are no more jobs at the top. There is no more ways to make money by manipulation of markets and management of "other people's" (giant faceless financial institution's) money. It's time we told these folks with their overindulgent great expectations
that the jig is up, and time to hear the same thing that most young Americans have to deal with in their early career; that they must just get a job, any job, and start saving, in the hopes of something they really want to do with ther lives coming along later.

I could go on and on about the stats on graduate programs; real Employment rates (how academia measures it, a much better measuring tool); quantifiable and non-quantifiable ratios of relative achievement related to resources and connections for doing so, etc.

Mt. Si

Driftwood Art - Seattle Beach Club

West Seattle Taxi ride on a beautiful day ...

Always makes for a fun cheap boatride on a pretty day in Seattle.