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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
oilhistorian's LiveJournal:
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| Monday, June 8th, 2009 | | 6:01 pm |
Overreach
Apparently Rush Limbaugh and Hugh Hewitt are upset that the federal government had to bail out GM ... so upset, in fact, that they're calling for a boycott of GM and its products to restore the free market and overcome this "socialism." http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/06/right-wingers-to-boycott-gm.php?ref=fpblgOne wonders how the NASCAR dads will respond. After all, some of the most popular drivers sport the bowtie ... and if Dale Earnhardt were still kicking, I think the Intimidator might have a few words for these idiots. | | Sunday, March 22nd, 2009 | | 9:48 pm |
| | Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 | | 9:44 am |
Arrgh!
Took the new minivan into the shop today to get some minor things fixed. Fox News was playing in the customer lounge. Now, I almost never watch TV news anymore -- too dumbed down by far. But this was simply unreal! The female anchor was shocked -- shocked! -- that Obama has the audacity to raise taxes and eliminate the mortgage interest deduction (on mansions, it was eventually pointed out by the guest) while simultaneously creating a budget deficit of $2 trillion. She then interviewed somebody else who noted that little of the TARP money has yet to trickle down to small businesses in the form of loans (again, the interviewee felt obligated to point out that Obama had brought this up himself yesterday). This anchor then shook her head in amazement that the government wasn't doing enough to help businesses with the stimulus funds. Which left me pondering: if the conservative nutjobs like this news bimbo are aghast that the rich (and others, as was the implication) might actually have to pay more in taxes, upset that (as she put it) the new budget represents $32,000 per household in the US, and shocked that the government is not doing enough to help small businesses, then what the heck do they want? You can't spend what you don't have without raising the deficits, you can't pay down the deficits (including the $1 trillion left by the former President) without increasing taxes, and you can't pursue economic stimulus without effectively increasing spending (either indirectly by cutting taxes, thereby lowering revenues, or directly by actually spending more -- either way, expenditures grow larger relative to revenues). Reality sucks, but the inescapable fact is that you have to either raise the deficit, raise taxes, or decrease spending. And decreasing spending right now carries risks of total economic meltdown. More than ever, I lament the decline of the print media. | | Monday, February 16th, 2009 | | 6:14 pm |
| | Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 | | 11:03 am |
Symbolism
At the German Reichstag in Berlin, the spaces open to the public are above the parliamentary chambers and offices. Visitors get to look down on the German legislature as it does its business. Yesterday, the new Capitol Visitors Center opened. Designed in part to prevent an act of terror against the Congress, the Visitors Center is beneath the Capitol and in a separate building altogether. Indeed, as the Washington Post's Dana Milbank noted, members of Congress won't even need to smell their constituents any longer .... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/02/AR2008120202941_pf.html | | Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 | | 11:59 pm |
One-term Congressmen from Illinois
Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We -- even we here -- hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just -- a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless. -- A. Lincoln, Dec. 1, 1862 If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer. It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen, by people who waited for three hours and four hours, many for the first time in their lives because they believed that this time must be different, that their voices could be that difference. It's the answer spoken by young and old; rich and poor; Democrat and Republican; black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states, we are and always will be the United States of America. It's the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day. -- B. Obama, Nov. 4, 2008 | | Thursday, September 25th, 2008 | | 2:44 pm |
Finally!
David Ignatius in today's WaPo: "A truly Keynesian rescue plan should do more than bail out foolish investors. How might the pieces fit into a larger design? Well, if the taxpayers are going to acquire a stake in the nation's largest insurance company, perhaps that company can be the cornerstone of a new system of universal private health coverage. If the taxpayers are going to acquire $700 billion in real estate assets, perhaps the eventual profits can fund new investments in infrastructure or energy technology." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/24/AR2008092403007_pf.html | | Saturday, September 20th, 2008 | | 11:24 am |
Idle Thoughts
Now that the government owns the world's largest insurance company (AIG), a company that offers health insurance ... Why not use it to provide affordable health insurance at cost to all Americans? | | Thursday, September 11th, 2008 | | 10:07 pm |
From Charlie Gibson's interview with Governor Palin: PALIN: We cannot repeat the Cold War. We are thankful that, under Reagan, we won the Cold War, without a shot fired, also. We’ve learned lessons from that in our relationship with Russia, previously the Soviet Union. Where to begin? The Cold War ended under Bush, not Reagan. And there were quite a few shots fired, to which my father and uncles can personally attest. Even in Reagan's administration, there were shots fired, notably in Grenada and Korea. How does she think her running mate got captured? Was the NVA throwing marshmallows? | | Thursday, August 21st, 2008 | | 8:27 am |
I'll Let This Stand Alone
So, oilhistorian, your LiveJournal reveals...
You are... 0% unique and 8% herdlike (partly because you, like everyone else, enjoy history). When it comes to friends you are normal. In terms of the way you relate to people, you are keen to please. Your writing style (based on a recent public entry) is intellectual.
Your overall weirdness is: 54(The average level of weirdness is: 27.
You are weirder than 92% of other LJers.)
Find out what your weirdness level is! | | Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 | | 8:41 pm |
| | Monday, February 11th, 2008 | | 7:11 pm |
Unsurprising
 |
What's Your Political Philosophy?
created with QuizFarm.com |
| You scored as Old School Democrat Old school Democrats emphasize economic justice and opportunity. The Democratic ideal is best summarized by the Four Freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
Old School Democrat |
| 100% | New Democrat |
| 90% | Green |
| 60% | Foreign Policy Hawk |
| 35% | Libertarian |
| 35% | Socially Conservative Republican |
| 20% | Pro Business Republican |
| 15% |
|
 | | Friday, June 29th, 2007 | | 9:46 am |
| | Tuesday, April 17th, 2007 | | 4:34 pm |
We Are Virginia Tech
We are Virginia Tech We are sad today And we will be sad for quite a while We are not moving on We are embracing our mourning We are Virginia Tech We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly We are brave enough to bend to cry … And sad enough to know we must laugh again We are Virginia Tech We do not understand this tragedy We know we did nothing to deserve it But neither does a child in Africa dying of aids Neither do the invisible children walking the night away to avoid being captured by a rogue army Neither does the baby elephant watching his community being devastated for ivory Neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water Neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of night in his crib in the home its father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destablized No one deserves a tragedy We are Virginia Tech The Hokie nation embraces our own and reaches out with open heart and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds We are strong and brave and innocent and unafraid We are better than we think and not quite what we want to be We are alive to the imagination and the possibility We will continue to invent the future Through our blood and tears Through all this sadness We are the Hokies We will prevail We will prevail We will prevail We are Virginia Tech -- Nikki Giovanni, University Distinguished Professor of English, VPI&SU Current Mood:  numb | | Monday, February 19th, 2007 | | 6:05 pm |
| | Tuesday, February 13th, 2007 | | 11:12 am |
| | Friday, February 2nd, 2007 | | 8:19 am |
| | Sunday, December 10th, 2006 | | 10:48 pm |
| | Friday, November 3rd, 2006 | | 8:28 am |
"Holy Tastykakes, Batgirl!"
Courtesy of ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) bibliotropeThis is uncannily accurate. | What American accent do you have? Your Result: Philadelphia Your accent is as Philadelphian as a cheesesteak! If you're not from Philadelphia, then you're from someplace near there like south Jersey, Baltimore, or Wilmington. if you've ever journeyed to some far off place where people don't know that Philly has an accent, someone may have thought you talked a little weird even though they didn't have a clue what accent it was they heard. | | The Northeast | | | The Midland | | | The South | | | The Inland North | | | Boston | | | The West | | | North Central | | What American accent do you have?
Take More Quizzes |
Current Mood:  impressed | | Tuesday, July 4th, 2006 | | 8:38 am |
Treason Most Foul
The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated: Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett Lyman Hall George Walton Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper Joseph Hewes John Penn South Carolina: Edward Rutledge Thomas Heyward, Jr. Thomas Lynch, Jr. Arthur Middleton Column 3
Massachusetts:John Hancock Maryland:Samuel Chase William Paca Thomas Stone Charles Carroll of Carrollton Virginia:George Wythe Richard Henry Lee Thomas Jefferson Benjamin Harrison Thomas Nelson, Jr. Francis Lightfoot Lee Carter Braxton Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris Benjamin Rush Benjamin Franklin John Morton George Clymer James Smith George Taylor James Wilson George Ross Delaware:
Caesar Rodney George Read Thomas McKean Column 5
New York:
William Floyd Philip Livingston Francis Lewis Lewis Morris New Jersey:
Richard Stockton John Witherspoon Francis Hopkinson John Hart Abraham Clark Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett William Whipple Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams John Adams Robert Treat Paine Elbridge Gerry Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins William Ellery Connecticut:
Roger Sherman Samuel Huntington William Williams Oliver Wolcott New Hampshire: Matthew Thornton
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