http://www.bethechangeinc.org/…

ServiceNation Summit Co-chairs:

• Vartan Gregorian, President, Carnegie Corporation of New York
  
• Caroline Kennedy, Vice-Chair, New York City Fund For Public Schools
  
• Bill Novelli, CEO, AARP
  
• Alma Powell, Chair, America’s Promise Alliance
  
• Rick Stengel, Managing Editor, TIME Magazine

ServiceNation Leadership Council:

• Andi Bernstein
• Tom A. Bernstein, President and Co-founder, Chelsea Piers
• Michael R. Bloomberg, Mayor, New York, NY; Chairman, National September 11 Memorial and Museum
• Cory Booker, Mayor, Newark, NJ
• Richard H. Brodhead, President, Duke University
• Neil Bush, CEO, Global XS
• Geoffrey Canada, President and CEO, Harlem Children’s Zone
• Mortimer Caplin, Former Commissioner, Internal Revenue Service
• Vice Admiral Richard Carmona, Former U.S. Surgeon General
• Jean Case, CEO, The Case Foundation
• Richard Celeste, President, Colorado College
• Ray Chambers, Amelior Foundation
• Richard Cizik, Vice President, National Association of Evangelicals
• Glenn Close, Actress
• William Cohen, Former Secretary of Defense; Former U.S. Senator
• Janet Langhart Cohen, Author; Founder, Citizen Patriot Organization
• Scott Cowen, President, Tulane University
• Tom Daschle, Former U.S. Senator
• John J. DeGioia, President, Georgetown University
• Manny Diaz, Mayor, Miami, FL
• John Dilulio, Former Director, Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives; Author, The Godly Republic
• Melinda Doolittle, Recording Artist
• Paul Fireman, Founder, Reebok
• Al From, Founder and CEO, Democratic Leadership Council
• Susan Fuhrman, President, Teachers College, Columbia University
• Mark Gearan, President, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
• David Gergen, Professor of Public Service and Director, Center for Public Leadership, Harvard University
• Michael Gerson, Columnist, The Washington Post
• Stephen Goldsmith, Former Mayor, Indianapolis, IN
• Jennifer Granholm, Governor, Michigan
• Rabbi Irving Greenberg, Theologian; Author, The Jewish Way; Founding President, Jewish Life Network
• Amy Gutmann, President, University of Pennsylvania
• Lee Hamilton, Former Congressman; Former Co-chair, 9/11 Commission and Iraq Study Group
• Jenny Chin Hansen, President, AARP
• Gary Hart, Former U.S. Senator
• Admiral James R. Hogg, USN (Ret), Director, Strategic Studies Group, Naval War College
• James J. Jensen
• Martin Luther King, III, Chairman, Realizing the Dream
• Joel Klein, Chancellor, New York City Public Schools
• Sherry Lansing, Founder, The Sherry Lansing Foundation
• Jim Leach, Former Congressman; John L. Weinberg Professor of Public and International Affairs, Woodrow   Wilson School, Princeton University
• Anthony Marx, President, Amherst College
• Bonnie McElveen-Hunter, Chairman, American Red Cross
• Sam Nunn, Former U.S. Senator
• Michael Nutter, Mayor, Philadelphia, PA
• Martin O’Malley, Governor, Maryland
• Lt. General Dave R. Palmer, USA (Ret), Former Superintendent, U.S. Military Academy at West Point; Author
• David Paterson, Governor, New York
• Kal Penn, Actor
• Gregg Petersmeyer, Former Assistant to the President; Director, Office of National Service under George H.W. Bush
• Peter G. Peterson, Founder and Chairman, Peter G. Peterson Foundation; Co-founder, Blackstone Group Management
• Rob Portman, Former Congressman; Former Director, Office of Management and Budget
• Samantha Power, Anna Lindh Professor of Practice of Global Leadership and Public Policy, Harvard University; Author
• Marc Racicot, Former Governor, Montana
• Susan Rice, Foreign Policy Advisor, Obama for America
• Bill Richardson, Governor, New Mexico
• David Shaw, Managing Partner, Black Point Group
• Rodney Slater, Former Secretary of Transportation; Chair, United Way of America
• Laurie M. Tisch, President, Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund
• Paul Vallas, Superintendent, New Orleans Recovery School District
• David Walker, President and CEO, Peter G. Peterson Foundation
• Silda Wall, Founder, Children For Children
• Rick Warren, Senior Pastor, Saddleback Church; Author, A Purpose Driven Life
• Harris Wofford, Former U.S. Senator; Former CEO, Corporation for National & Community Service

Is it surprising that a large portion of those in support are directly or indirectly government bureaucrats?

http://news.yahoo.com/…

John McCain’s model for ginning up the economy isn’t Keynesian or Milton Friedmanite. It’s EBay Inc.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee regularly asserts that 1.3 million people worldwide “make a living off EBay.” He holds up the figure as evidence the world’s largest Internet auctioneer is a model for job and economic growth.

McCain, seeking to address voter anxiety about the economy, uses EBay to signal that he is “fundamentally optimistic about the capacity of the U.S. economy to innovate, for that innovation to give new opportunities for jobs,” said Doug Holtz-Eakin, the candidate’s senior economic adviser. “We shouldn’t be obsessed with looking backwards all the time, and saying, `Gee, where did those jobs go?”’

This affection for EBay as an engine for job creation, however, confounds economists such as Betsey Stevenson, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business in Philadelphia.

“In terms of jobs, there’s no net increase in GDP that comes from trading stuff that’s already made,” said Stevenson, author of a study on the Internet and employment levels. “New people selling stuff out of their closet on EBay isn’t growing the economy.”

“It’s an example of good old-fashioned U.S. ingenuity, but selling used products is a limited business model,” said Ethan Harris, the chief economist at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in New York. San Jose, California-based EBay transformed what was an “incredibly inefficient market for junk and turned it into a very efficient market for junk.”

McCain may not accept such criticism. He has shown increasing disdain for any economist who questions his policy prescriptions. Earlier this month, he lashed out at critics of his proposal for a summer gas-tax holiday.

“You know the economists?” McCain said June 12 at Federal Hall, near the New York Stock Exchange. “They’re the same ones that didn’t predict this housing crisis we’re in. They’re the same ones that didn’t predict the dot-com meltdown. They’re the same ones that didn’t predict the inflation that’s staring us in the face today.”

You know the economists? The ones that claimed we aren’t in a recession.

Oh wait!!! You aren’t an economist.

You just surround yourself with them. The ones who are fully versed in kindergarten level economic theory. Not to insult kindergartners.

Not that you aren’t well read. (skip to 2min 30 seconds in)

John, you do realize that there were economists who predicted the housing crisis and the dot-com meltdown and the inflation “that’s staring us in the face today.” They come from the Austrian school of economics and you had one of them on stage with you. Ron Paul is his name and if you’d like to start looking into this school of thought I’m sure he’d be more then happy to help you out.

http://abcnews.go.com/…

A half-dozen police officers kicked and beat three men pulled from a car during a traffic stop as a TV helicopter taped the confrontation.The video, shot by WTXF-TV, shows three police cars stopping a car Monday, two days after a city officer was shot to death responding to a bank robbery.

The tape shows about a dozen officers gathering around the vehicle. About a half-dozen officers hold two of the men on the ground. Both are kicked repeatedly, while one is seen being punched; one also appears to be struck with a baton.

The third man is also kicked and ends up on the ground.

“On the surface it certainly does not look good in terms of the amount of force that was used,” Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said. “But we don’t want to rush to judgment.”

No need to rush to judgment… seems to me all the evidence necessary is right here. Five of these officers are off the street now… just not in a jail where they belong.

http://www.breitbart.com/…

The owner of a famous cheesesteak shop did not discriminate when he posted signs asking customers to speak English, a city panel ruled Wednesday.

In a 2-1 vote, a Commission on Human Relations panel found that two signs at Geno’s Steaks telling customers, “This is America: WHEN ORDERING ‘PLEASE SPEAK ENGLISH,’” do not violate the city’s Fair Practices Ordinance.

Shop owner Joe Vento has said he posted the signs in October 2005 because of concerns over immigration reform and an increasing number of people in the area who could not order in English.

Vento has said he never refused service to anyone because they couldn’t speak English. But critics argued that the signs discourage customers of certain backgrounds from eating at the shop.

I’m glad they won… but not for the right reasons. It should have been: “Is it private property? Yes. Case closed.”

Commissioners Roxanne E. Covington and Burt Siegel voted to dismiss the complaint, finding that the sign does not communicate that business will be “refused, withheld or denied.”

From today’s Philadelphia Inquirier:

It sounded simple enough when Mayor John F. Street announced in October that the city would install 250 digital video cameras in some of its most dangerous neighborhoods - to deter crimes and help police investigate them. At the time, the city had 18 cameras working at 12 intersections in a pilot project, and then-Democratic mayoral candidate Michael Nutter was an enthusiastic supporter of the proposal.

Five months later, the city has only five of the new wireless cameras online, as the system’s bureaucratic and technological challenges are proving more complex than anticipated.

How long until, “we just need a few more million to continue the project,” will be uttered by Mr. Nutter?