Opening:

• Was just visited by Henri Makembe. Told me they would be providing for interview with people but I’d have to keep it friendly. “If we make them mad then they won’t want to give any of the other bloggers time.” So… they don’t want me to ask serious questions. What a surprise.
• Have quoted Winston Churchill, Mother Teressa, Mahatma Gandhi.
• They show all these examples of service yet they all appear to be real voluntarism, ie no government involvement.
• “We are not here as Republicans, Democrats, libertarians, socialists or Green party members. We are here as Americans.” I appreciate the shout out but I’m here as a libertarian.
• “We are here today because of Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.” Too bad they don’t wish to abide by the ideas contained in those documents.
• “Politicians get a bad wrap. Some deservingly. But there are all kinds of politicians who help America.”
• Being a citizen of the United States is the highest reward.
• If you googled “giving back” you’d likely find “Mike Bloomberg.”
• Bloomberg: New York City’s government school system improvement is an example for the rest of the nation.
• New York City is the city of service because William James who wrote The Moral Equivalent of War (intro by Jon Roland) advocating national service was born here.
• “We are the beneficiaries of those who give their lives to defend us.” Defending from the Koreans? The Vietnamese? The Iraqis? The Pakistanis? The Iranians?
• Bloomberg babbles on about global warming, “We are polluting the air we breath.” Yes… by breathing.
• “Service should be asked of everyone and should be open to everyone. So we are creating new programs.”
• “Democracy and capitalism hasn’t helped everyone…”
• George Bush: Asks everyone to spend two years or 4k hours helping out in a lifetime.
• Laura Bush: “People have more opportunities to volunteer through government programs.” Being incentivized by tax payers money is not voluntarism.
• Rolling Ridge elementary school gives it’s kids service journals and have made ’service’ party of the curriculum.
• “Children who learn the importance of service early are more likely to volunteer later in life.” Gotta indoctrinate them young.
• The program has moved on to personal stories from ‘volunteers.’ One from City Year, Civilian Conservation Corp, AmeriCorps.
• Admiral Michael Mullen: “the soldiers in Iraq are protecting our democracy at home. They are there because of what happened on 9/11.” I thought Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. How is it that our invasion of Iraq is protecting us?
• “There is no greater reward than working for something greater than yourself.”
• “Keep singing (God Bless America), keep waving (flags), and keep serving!” Yay nationalism/fascism!
• Obama, McCain, Dodd, Clinton have said they will cosponsor the Serve America Act from Kennedy and Hatch.
• The language used always refers to “the two candidates for the oval office.”
• Senator Hatch: “We want to help children who want to serve.”
• “Our efforts will start early in our classrooms.”
• “Service learning has shown to keep kids interested in school. So we are going to offer more incentives.”
• 61 million Americans volunteer without government incentives.
• “We will invest into a volunteer fund matched dollar for dollar from the private sector.”
• Want to create funds to help non-profit entrepreneurs.
• Offer older people “education rewards” to give to their children and grandchildren to pay for school.

Read More…

http://www.time.com/…

At various times in American history, public service and private effort

went arm in arm. After Pearl Harbor, Rosie the Riveter and Uncle Sam exhorted people to help the war effort, and Americans responded. But since F.D.R., and especially since J.F.K.’s launching of the Peace Corps, national service has been seen by some as a Democratic or liberal idea. In the ’90s, Newt Gingrich argued that the rise of big government programs robbed people of their initiative to volunteer. After Bill Clinton signed the bill to create AmeriCorps in 1993, then Senator John Ashcroft called it “welfare for the well-to-do.”

But these days there is a growing consensus on Capitol Hill that the private and public spheres can be linked. Democrats understand the need to support programs outside of government; Republicans understand that voluntary programs can be helped by government. In his first State of the Union address after 9/11, President George W. Bush called for Americans to give 4,000 hours of service and established the USA Freedom Corps. One of the early critics of AmeriCorps, John McCain, has since become a devout supporter. “National service is an issue that has been largely identified with the Democratic Party and the left of the political spectrum,” McCain wrote in a 2001 Washington Monthly essay. “That is unfortunate, because duty, honor and country are values that transcend ideology…National service is a crucial means of making our patriotism real, to the benefit of both ourselves and our country.”

THE PLAN

So what would a plan for universal national service look like? It would be voluntary, not mandatory. Americans don’t like to be told what they have to do; many have argued that requiring service drains the gift of its virtue. It would be based on carrots, not sticks — “doing well by doing good,” as Benjamin Franklin, the true father of civic engagement, put it. So here is a 10-point plan for universal national service. The ideas here are a mixture of suggestions already made, revised versions of other proposals and a few new wrinkles.

1. Create a National-Service Baby Bond
2. Make National Service a Cabinet-Level Department
3. Expand Existing National-Service Programs Like AmeriCorps and the National Senior Volunteer Corps
4. Create an Education Corps
5. Institute a Summer of Service
6. Build a Health Corps
7. Launch a Green Corps
8. Recruit a Rapid-Response Reserve Corps
9. Start a National-Service Academy
10. Create a Baby-Boomer Education Bond

Voluntary? Really? How long would that last? How voluntary is the collection of funds to pay for all this proposed government expansion.

Read More…

http://www.themonitor.com/…

Preparations for Tropical Storm Dolly include plans by the federal government for thousands of illegal immigrants in custody at the detention center.

But U.S. Border Patrol agents at the Sarita checkpoint will not stop motorists evacuating from a hurricane, an official said Monday.

“We’re not going to be stopping people and asking where they’re from,” said Lloyd Easterling, a spokesman for the Border Patrol in Washington, D.C. “We don’t want to slow the evacuation process. Life is paramount at this point.”

Isn’t that nice of them. Tom from New Hampshire on last night’s FTL said that representitive Ciro Rodriguez, who was on a plane with Ron Paul which had to make an emergency landing yesterday in New Orleans, said that people evacuating should bring identification just to be sure. Never know when the thugs will change their minds.

In other news, the police state wants to make it easier for you to be harassed.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/…

TSA asked luggage makers to come up with prototype designs that will make it easier to view a laptop in the X-ray machines, basically by building in a place to store the laptop in a back or front compartment where there are no straps, pockets, zippers etc. Cables and chargers would have to be stored in side pouches.

“We’re looking to see what works in terms of fewer obstructions in the bag itself that often mask what’s really in it,” said Dwayne Baird, a TSA spokesman in Seattle. “One of the biggest things we hear is people saying, ‘we’re tired of pulling out our laptops.”‘

TSA says not having to remove laptops would speed up security lines and reduce the number of claims it gets for computers damaged during screening.

One manufacturer says it hopes to have a bag ready by this fall that will meet TSA’s specifications. Tustin, Calif.-based Pathfinder Luggage will begin producing a rolling style briefcase (14 x 8 x 17 inches) with wheels and separate zippered compartments that would retail for around $100.

The laptop changes would follow on the TSA’s new “Black Diamond” program that calls for passengers to segregate themselves into color-coded security lines based on their traveling expertise.

In place at one security check point at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, it calls for travelers to voluntarily go to different lanes — black for “experts,” meaning frequent fliers who pack light, know the security drill and won’t hold up the line; blue for “casual travelers” who fly just a few times a year and may not be familiar with all the new rules; and green for families with children or others needing special help.

Nice to know the criminals want to make the victim as comfortable as possible. They wouldn’t be able to continue if they started getting all uppity.

John McCain:

Patriotism is deeper than its symbolic expressions, than sentiments about place and kinship that move us to hold our hands over our hearts during the national anthem. It is putting the country first, before party or personal ambition, before anything.

Barack Obama:

Instead of a call to service, we were asked to go shopping. Instead of a call for shared sacrifice, we gave tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans in a time of war for the very first time in our history.

And that is why I won’t just ask for your vote as a candidate – I will ask for your service and your active citizenship when I am President of the United States.

Just as we must value and encourage military service across our society, we must honor and expand other opportunities to serve. Because the future of our nation depends on the soldier at Fort Carson, but it also depends on the teacher in East LA, the nurse in Appalachia, the after-school worker in New Orleans, the Peace Corps volunteer in Africa, and the Foreign Service officer in Indonesia.

As President, I will expand AmeriCorps to 250,000 slots, and make that increased service a vehicle to meet national goals like providing health care and education, saving our planet and restoring our standing in the world, so that citizens see their efforts connected to a common purpose. People of all ages, stations, and skills will be asked to serve.

Asked? How about told. McCain’s looking to start another war or ten and likely a draft will be needed. Obama is looking to expand national services of all sorts and even if they aren’t giving me busy work they will be using their guns to make me pay for it.

http://www.wdsu.com/…

The U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Tuesday night to approve an ethics investigation into Rep. William Jefferson that ultimately could lead to his expulsion from Congress.

The Democrat whose district includes much of New Orleans was indicted Monday on 16 counts, including bribery, racketeering and money laundering.

Based on what I’ve seen so far this guy looks fairly guilty. If so I hope this causes the D’s to stop acting as if only R’s can be corrupt. There is already plenty of evidence to show as much but unless it’s happened in the past year or two it’s as if it never happened.