NORTH AMERICAN UNION

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I didn't say I was pro N. Korea.  You obviously need to hone your psychic skills.  What I am saying is that yes, I am anti nukes.  I am also anti "let's jes kill 'em all" mentality that we've had to put up with for the previous 8 years. 

Another thing you might want to consider is that N. Korea is not completely without allies.  Unless we're willing to catch one of those nukes, I would think it best if we didn't start playing hot pototoe with them. 

xx

I was surfing a bit this morning and found this news article from N. Korea. I doubt things will cool off for a long time, if ever. The article headlines state: "Lee Myung-Bak's Group Military Provocations Blasted. From there, it calls him a puppet war monger and states how Myung-Bak outbursts "over the non-existant provocation (my emphasis) by the North."

http://www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm

How does your husband feel about voting out in the open; no more secret ballots?  That's quite audacious!

Todd Palin is a card-carrying union guy, too.

the economy started really going under after 9/11.  At GM, if you were "laid off" you still received 95% of your pay.  They would get the regular unemployment benefits and GM would supplement the rest.  This was in their contract, which to me is GMs fault, not the employee. 

If it was a permanent layoff, then you went to the job banks, where you would sit for 40 hours a week, receive full pay and schooling if you wanted it.  They only allowed so many people in the job banks, but it was numbering in the thousands at one point.  These people also had the option of volunteering in the community instead of just sitting there.  I know 3 that went on to get their degrees in other lines of work and about 10 that waited there until retirement.

This was set up in the 70s when the first massive layoff hit.  This guaranteed that GM would hire back the employees that were laid off instead of hiring people off the streets.  Another union thing. 

I think Amanda is right from below.  They made a lot of money over time and now that things are bad again, they didn't plan ahead and budget their money.  No one is going to bail me out, pay my mortgage, feed my family, electric bill, etc.  I know that having them go down is going to hurt many people and that is not what I want, but the bailouts that have already happened have not shown the execs to be responsible in any way.  My father will be one of those losing their health benefits as well and he has medical conditions too as well as my mom.  My husband works for one of their suppliers so we are affected as well.  My husband busts his rear day in and day out for $17 an hour with no benefits.  Overtime is not allowed.  I guess I just want them to show responsibility.

U.S. and Russia to Enter Civilian Nuclear Pact
Bush Reverses Long-Standing Policy, Allows Agreement That May Provide Leverage on Iran

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 8, 2006; A01

President Bush has decided to permit extensive U.S. civilian nuclear cooperation with Russia for the first time, administration officials said yesterday, reversing decades of bipartisan policy in a move that would be worth billions of dollars to Moscow but could provoke an uproar in Congress.

Bush resisted such a move for years, insisting that Russia first stop building a nuclear power station for Iran near the Persian Gulf. But U.S. officials have shifted their view of Russia's collaboration with Iran and concluded that President Vladimir Putin has become a more constructive partner in trying to pressure Tehran to give up any aspirations for nuclear weapons.

The president plans to announce his decision at a meeting with Putin in St. Petersburg next Saturday before the annual summit of leaders from the Group of Eight major industrialized nations, officials said. The statement to be released by the two presidents would agree to start negotiations for the formal agreement required under U.S. law before the United States can engage in civilian nuclear cooperation.

In the administration's view, both sides would benefit. A nuclear cooperation agreement would clear the way for Russia to import and store thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel from U.S.-supplied reactors around the world, a lucrative business so far blocked by Washington. It could be used as an incentive to win more Russian cooperation on Iran. And it would be critical to Bush's plan to spread civilian nuclear energy to power-hungry countries because Russia would provide a place to send the used radioactive material.

At the same time, it could draw significant opposition from across the ideological spectrum, according to analysts who follow the issue. Critics wary of Putin's authoritarian course view it as rewarding Russia even though Moscow refuses to support sanctions against Iran. Others fearful of Russia's record of handling nuclear material see it as a reckless move that endangers the environment.

You will have all the anti-Russian right against it, you will have all the anti-nuclear left against it, and you will have the Russian democracy center concerned about it too, said Matthew Bunn, a nuclear specialist at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

Since Russia is already a nuclear state, such an agreement, once drafted, presumably would conform to the Atomic Energy Act and therefore would not require congressional approval. Congress could reject it only with majority votes by both houses within 90 legislative days.

Administration officials confirmed the president's decision yesterday only after it was first learned from outside nuclear experts privy to the situation. The officials insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose the agreement before the summit.

The prospect, however, has been hinted at during public speeches in recent days. We certainly will be talking about nuclear energy, Assistant Energy Secretary Karen A. Harbert told a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace event Thursday. We need alternatives to hydrocarbons.

Some specialists said Bush's decision marks a milestone in U.S.-Russian relations, despite tension over Moscow's retreat from democracy and pressure on neighbors. It signals that there's a sea change in the attitude toward Russia, that they're someone we can try to work with on Iran, said Rose Gottemoeller, a former Energy Department official in the Clinton administration who now directs the Carnegie Moscow Center. It bespeaks a certain level of confidence in the Russians by this administration that hasn't been there before.

But others said the deal seems one-sided. Just what exactly are we getting? That's the real mystery, said Henry D. Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. Until now, he noted, the United States has insisted on specific actions by Russia to prevent Iran from developing bombs. We're not getting any of that. We're getting an opportunity to give them money.

Environmentalists have denounced Russia's plans to transform itself into the world's nuclear dump. The country has a history of nuclear accidents and contamination. Its transportation network is antiquated and inadequate for moving vast quantities of radioactive material, critics say. And the country, they add, has not fully secured the nuclear facilities it already has against theft or accidents.

The United States has civilian nuclear cooperation agreements with the European atomic energy agency, along with China, Japan, Taiwan and 20 other countries. Bush recently sealed an agreement with India, which does require congressional approval because of that nation's unsanctioned weapons program.

Russia has sought such an agreement with the United States since the 1990s, when it began thinking about using its vast land mass to store much of the world's spent nuclear fuel. Estimating that it could make as much as $20 billion, Russia enacted a law in 2001 permitting the import, temporary storage and reprocessing of foreign nuclear fuel, despite 90 percent opposition in public opinion polls.

But the plan went nowhere. The United States controls spent fuel from nuclear material it provides, even in foreign countries, and Bunn estimates that as much as 95 percent of the potential world market for Russia was under U.S. jurisdiction. Without a cooperation agreement, none of the material could be sent to Russia, even though allies such as South Korea and Taiwan are eager to ship spent fuel there.

Like President Bill Clinton before him, Bush refused to consider it as long as Russia was helping Iran with its nuclear program. In the summer of 2002, according to Bunn, Bush sent Putin a letter saying an agreement could be reached only if the central problem of assistance to Iran's missile, nuclear and advanced conventional weapons programs was solved.

The concern over the nuclear reactor under construction at Bushehr, however, has faded. Russia agreed to provide all fuel to the facility and take it back once used, meaning it could not be turned into material for nuclear bombs. U.S. officials who once suspected that Russian scientists were secretly behind Iran's weapons program learned that critical assistance to Tehran came from Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan.

The 2002 disclosure that Iran had secret nuclear sites separate from Bushehr shocked both the U.S. and Russian governments and seemed to harden Putin's stance toward Iran. He eventually agreed to refer the issue to the U.N. Security Council and signed on to a package of incentives and penalties recently sent to Tehran. At the same time, he has consistently opposed economic sanctions, military action or even tougher diplomatic language by the council, much to the frustration of U.S. officials.

Opening negotiations for a formal nuclear cooperation agreement could be used as a lever to move Putin further. Talks will inevitably take months, and the review in Congress will extend the process. If during that time Putin resists stronger measures against Iran, analysts said, the deal could unravel or critics on Capitol Hill could try to muster enough opposition to block it. If Putin proves cooperative on Iran, they said, it could ease the way toward final approval.

This was one of the few areas where there was big money involved that you could hold over the Russians, said George Perkovich, an arms-control specialist and vice president of the Carnegie Endowment. It's a handy stick, a handy thing to hold over the Russians.

Bush has an interest in taking the agreement all the way as well. His new Global Nuclear Energy Partnership envisions promoting civilian nuclear power around the world and eventually finding a way to reprocess spent fuel without the danger of leaving behind material that could be used for bombs. Until such technology is developed, Bush needs someplace to store the spent fuel from overseas, and Russia is the only volunteer.

The Russians could make a lot of money importing foreign spent fuel, some of our allies would desperately like to be able to send their fuel to Russia, and maybe we could use the leverage to get other things done, such as getting the Russians to be more forward-leaning on Iran, Bunn said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/07/AR2006070701588.html?sub=new

A little bit of history on North Korea and the dilemma. Read the rest of the article from the link below.

"So it's another step backwards again with North Korea.

In defiance of a Security Council resolution (1718) passed after its first nuclear test in 2006, it has now announced a second. It has also implied that it has solved some at least of the problems it encountered in the first.

The actual technical achievement remains to be examined. But the test itself represents a continued belligerency whose destination is unknown. "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8066719.stm

As a nation, we did not used to spend so much time splitting hairs over words.

What if back when the 19th amendment was enacted, they had said:  Women having the right to 'vote' would upset men.   So instead of 'voting' we're going to call it 'ballot casting.'  That way, women can have the same rights as men, but only men can be 'voters' and won't feel they're losing their special status. 

How about if during the civil rights movement, when segregation was eliminated, instead of integration they had called it:  'The right to attend the same schools and go to the same restaurants and ride in the front of the bus'?  Calling institutions 'integrated' would upset the southern states. 

How about when women began to demand 'equal pay for equal work'?  What if they had said:  Okay, you can have the money and the responsibility, maybe even the corner office, but only a man can be called VP of Sales.  Instead, your title will have to be something else, maybe Sales Coordinator, othewise the men who are VPs will get angry. 

I suppose a fair number of women or blacks would have considered this a win, because they were gaining the benefit, if not the exact status of the changes.  But a fair number of folks rightly would have said:  Huh?  Aren't these silly distinctions?  A lot of people would have wondered why they didn't just shut up and 'settle.'  

If a civil union conveys such benefits as inheritance rights, parental rights, credit rights, insurance rights, the right to make medical decisions for a spouse then, really, what's in a name?

but unfortunately many see it as a temporary situation.  Some people honestly cannot help their marriages dissolve, however, even if you throw the religion aspect out of it homosexuality doesn't even make sense in Darwin's theory.  Homosexuals would naturally die out, because they aren't procreating.

I've not had children either, but just because I haven't and you haven't doesn't make a case for homosexual marriages.

The President left out a few things when surveying the State of the Union:

• 
  
  He proudly spoke of writing a new chapter in the story of self-government in Iraq and Afghanistan and said the number of democracies in the world is growing. He failed to mention that neither Iraq nor Afghanistan yet qualify as democracies according to the very group whose statistics he cited.
  
  
• 
  
  Bush called for Congress to pass a line-item veto, failing to mention that the Supreme Court struck down a line-item veto as unconstitutional in 1998. Bills now in Congress would propose a Constitutional amendment, but none have shown signs of life.
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  The President said the economy gained 4.6 million jobs in the past two-and-a-half years, failing to note that it had lost 2.6 million jobs in his first two-and-a-half years in office. The net gain since Bush took office is just a little more than 2 million.
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  He talked of cutting spending, but only non-security discretionary spending. Actually, total federal spending has increased 42 percent since Bush took office.
  
  
• 
  
  He spoke of being on track to cut the federal deficit in half by 2009. But the deficit is increasing this year, and according to the Congressional Budget Office it will decline by considerably less than half even if Bush's tax cuts are allowed to lapse.
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Bush spoke of a goal of cutting dependence on Middle Eastern oil, failing to mention that US dependence on imported oil and petroleum products increased substantially during his first five years in office, reaching 60 per cent of consumption last year.

Analysis

We found nothing that was factually incorrect in the President's Jan. 31 State of the Union address to Congress and the nation. However, we did note some selective use of statistics. We also found that Bush omitted some relevant facts that tended to make the state of the union look less rosy than he presented.

as were all these Pro-Lifers kept back behind Bob's Barricade wooden horses....I was there, hundreds were there on 14th Street that day prior to Roe vs Wade being passed....

I was very young....and I remember having this thought....If they are SOOOO interested in what is going on in my and other's uteruses/uteri....why do they NOT take some responsibility for the orphaned/fostered/forgotten children left in this country?  Again, I had that thought in 1973....and 35 years have passed and I STILL have the same thought.......my politics never changed......I am that same person I was then, only more mature, somewhat wiser, and very thankful....and I HAVE taken responsibility for MANY children in this country as I adore children....always have...

wonder just how many prolifers have adopted or fostered children left in fostercare/orphanages in this country.....over the same 35-40 year time frame......

that's not to them, they are entitled to feel what they feel...even though I just reread my post and it could be interpreted that way (and sorry for that) -

just get out of our bodies......our bodies, ourselves....(and Our Bodies, Ourselves is a book read way back then too)...and try to think about kids already here, abandoned or given up with no mentoring.....there are thousands of them in the USA.

Peace to all.....

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/ocwage_05092008.htm 

Going way down the page you will find the median pay for medical transcriptionists is approximately $15.02 per hour.  This being the case, if you are one of those fortunate enough to be making $20 or more per hour, I assume you will be recommending a pay cut for yourself and all others who are making more than the median in order to bring pay more in line with other workers.  Translated that means leaving more in the coffers for the big CEOs.  I don't know whether some of you are BDD or what.

With 3 million jobs hanging in the balance.

Countdown has obtained a memo entitled "Action Alert - Auto Bailout," and sent Wednesday at 9:12am, to Senate Republicans. The names of the sender(s) and recipient(s) have been redacted in the copy Countdown obtained. The Los Angeles Times reported that it was circulated among Senate Republicans. The brief memo outlines internal political strategy on the bailout, including the view that defeating the bailout represents a "first shot against organized labor." Senate Republicans blocked passage of the bailout late Thursday night, over its insistence on an immediate union pay cut. See the entire memo after the jump.

Subject: Action Alert -- Auto Bailout

Today at noon, Senators Ensign, Shelby, Coburn and DeMint will hold a press conference in the Senate Radio/TV Gallery.  They would appreciate our support through messaging and attending the press conference, if possible.  The message they want us to deliver is:

1.       This is the democrats first opportunity to payoff organized labor after the election.  This is a precursor to card check and other items.  Republicans should stand firm and take their first shot against organized labor, instead of taking their first blow from it.

2.       This rush to judgment is the same thing that happened with the TARP.  Members did not have an opportunity to read or digest the legislation and therefore could not understand the consequences of it.  We should not rush to pass this because Detroit says the sky is falling.

The sooner you can have press releases and documents like this in the hands of members and the press, the better.  Please contact me if you need additional information.  Again, the hardest thing for the democrats to do is get 60 votes.  If we can hold the Republicans, we can beat this.

http://thenewshole.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/12/12/1713569.aspx

Indian was ***bestowed*** citizenship in 1924. Until that time I guess he would be described as an illegal. Since so many Indians had died in WWI the government was publicly embarrassed and so made the indigenous people citizens of their own land.

I don't know why I put the moccasin article on the other board. I guess, being an optimist, I thought this was 1 thing we could agree on, but alas, tis not true. I might add that $21 is incredibly cheap. Handmade moccasins made the traditional way, sewn by hand with sinew and leather strips usually cost around $50 to 75$ for the most plain design. I hope some of you will do this. It would mean more than you know.