Social Security ain't broke

We need someone to stand up in Congress and say:

There's a saying in New York, maybe it's in Texas too, that goes, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Well, Social Security ain't broke! It doesn't need fixing!

Paul Krugman explains it well.

Red White and Blue Dawn

When Bush invaded Iraq I borrowed the movie "Red Dawn" from the library. It's a dreadful patriotic story of a Soviet invasion of the U.S. with Patrick Swayze as a kid who takes some of his friends to the mountains to hide and fight back.

If you want to know why we won't be winning in Iraq anytime soon, you don't have to watch this movie to understand that there will always be Iraqis who want us gone and will do anything to make our presence there unbearable.

Deficits don't matter

Ronald Reagan said "deficits don't matter." The "majority" party has taken that to heart. But what is meant is not that deficits are not bad for the economy. They don't care about that.

They understand it to mean that deficits don't matter to staying in power. Voters don't care about deficits - they don't matter. Give people the illusion of tax cuts and local projects - pork - and they will vote for you.

Soviet style democracy

The "majority" party is well on the way to establishing their very own Soviet-style democracy. Rubber-stamp, etc.

Voter Protection Act / Amendment

Okay, so the voting procedure in the country is clearly screwed up. What to do, what to do?

How about introducing a Voter Protection Amendment to the constitution that would encompass the following solutions:

1. Congressional districts must be compactly drawn. I live in a "dogbone" district including part of Buffalo and part of Rochester New York, seventy miles away. There is at least one district between the two cities.

2. Redistricting must be limited to once per decade.

3. Electronic voting machines must produce a verifiable paper trail.

4. Electronic voting software must be open to inspection, or open source.

5. Election commissions must be non-partisan. Election commissioners or Secretaries of State must not participate in campaigns.

6. Voting periods must be extended.

7. Voting machines must be provided in sufficient quantities to prevent long lines or delays in voting.

The right to vote is certainly more important than so many other canards that have been presented as constitutional amendments. What, you don't want to protect voters rights?

It's been a month

and no posts. The word for the last month is ... unsettled.