It looks obvious

The wonderful Jan Helfeld, who in the past debated harry Ried whether taxes are voluntary or not, insist on an interview with Nancy Peloci to get an answer why her interns don’t deserve the same minimum wages she insist everybody else to pay. Unlike most interviewer Helfeld doesn’t move on when his questions are not being answered and the results are, to say the least, embarrassing.

I always thought that Peloci as an apparatchik, she is a political being that live and thrive on backdoor deals. But even I didn’t expect such low ability to form and protect an idea. And she is, together with the clown from the link above, the majority leaders - what a shame!

I was able to avoid the Olympic games completely and I’m sure the Chinese are deeply moved by my decision to boycott the games. Following this achievement I decided to continue with avoiding the circus called the Parties national convention. As of this moment I didn’t watch, listen or read anything about the DNC and the coming RNC. I wonder how long a news junkie like me can avoid those useless events - but by god it is great feeling.

I put on my car a new sticker that say:

I don’t see any real voting choice, and no I don’t think that I’ll vote for Bob Barr, So I think I’ll exercise my right to not vote. Whatever bad things the next President will make - higher taxes, national service, less freedom of speech - Don’t dare blaming me, I didn’t vote for any of them!

While many people got ready for the DNC convention in Denver and had a lot to say about the nomination of Senator Biden as Obama’s running mate, we were on the beach in Brigantine. The weather was excellent, I woke up early enough to make some fair attempts capturing the sunrise:

Tseela was making her first steps in surfing:

And Ronie was cute, as usual:

Many more pictures can be found here.

Not all is lost, and if things like this still happen the core of this country is still healthy:

Nobody’s going to tell Kerry “Paco” Ellison’s customers they can’t smoke at his bar.

The Black Hawk Saloon is Ellison’s bar, and he’ll run it as he sees fit.

“If I don’t want to pray, I don’t go to church,” Ellison said. “If you don’t want to smoke, don’t come in here.”

Today, Ellison and at least a dozen other bar owners across the county defiantly encouraged their patrons to smoke in violation of the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department’s six-week-old smoking ban.

It is actually extremely simple concept - the bar owner, the bar employees and the customers all engaged in voluntary transactions. None of those who enveloped in these transactions should be forced to buy or sell involuntarily; and yes, if the bar owner is racist and don’t want to serve a group of people he/she shouldn’t be coerced to act differently.

via disloyal opposition

Last summer we saw the wonderful play Frost/Nixon on broadway. The play tells the story of an interview, or a series of 4 interviews, the Nixon gave in 1975 to David Frost. Today while checking some details of Woody Ellen’s new movie, Vicky Cristina Barcelona (which is also very good) I discovered that the play was adapted to the big screen with both Frank Langella, as Nixson, and Michael Sheen, as Frost.

I’m really looking forward to see the movie, if it as good as the play it will be a great movie.

One have to wonder if political campaign is the only event were two man argue who has less and smaller. If this is the case, and it is so different from normal human behavior, what does it say about the entire process credibility, and those who playing it?

I got pretty frustrated with my recent blog writing block. However I’m so preoccupied with Job finding that I have very little mental patient to write a blog post. So, instead of writing deep and thoughtful, as if I ever did, blog posts and instead of actually focusing in finding new job I changed again the theme of the blog.

The theme name is Journalist which is very light and allow maximum attention to the actual content. I like it, and I hope that you’ll like it too. The comments, by the way, moved back from the sidebar to the bottom of the post.

I didn’t write here for few days, the job search consumed my energy and I didn’t feel like writing. In the mean time here is a picture I captured yesterday when I was walking a long Rockland Lake.

I love walking along the lake - its relaxing and great for concentrating.

Today I took Ronie to visit, and to get use too, the day care she going to attend this year. I remembered how hard was it with Tseela, and how long it took her to adjust and to enjoy going to day care - and I was afraid that this is going to repeat itself with Ronie. But to my surprise after about five minutes of sadness she was perfectly OK. The only time that she cried was when she was forced to go home…

Few more pictures, mostly because I was forced to go away, can be found here.

There is one theme rising above all others in this election cycle that really worries me. It isn’t the prospect of higher taxes and it isn’t the likelihood of the continuos irrational foreign policy and the complete blindness in the way we confront the radical terrorism and it isn’t the fear of deep recession. The issue that really makes me worried is the new call for national service and the notion that both, McCain and Obama, will welcome such development.

Don’t mistake the calls for national service with campaign populism, it isn’t. It is rooted deeply in both candidates core ideology and it is pushed by very broad and influential organizations. Wrap in a package of highly ideological and promises organizations, like the Time Magazine, lobbying , and preparing the public opinion, for enslaving broad portion of the population.

It is a unique moment for the idea of national service. You have two presidential candidates who believe deeply in service and who have made it part of their core message to voters. You have millions of Americans who are yearning to be more involved in the world and in their communities. You have corporations and businesses that are making civic engagement a key part of their mission.

Last September, our cover story “The Case for National Service” caused an outpouring of interest in and support for citizen service across the country. This year, in addition to publishing another issue on the idea of service, we are convening–along with the Carnegie Corporation of New York and with presenters AARP and Target–a national bipartisan summit in New York City that will bring together hundreds of leading Americans to plan and lay out a bold blueprint on citizen service. The event will start on the evening of Sept. 11–that solemn anniversary seemed an appropriate time to launch this effort–and the meeting itself will occur the next day, Sept. 12. The summit will also be the first major public event for ServiceNation, a national campaign of more than 100 organizations–ranging from AARP to the National Council of La Raza and Habitat for Humanity–that collectively represent some 100 million Americans. My co-chairs at the summit will be Alma Powell, Caroline Kennedy, Carnegie president Vartan Gregorian and AARP CEO Bill Novelli. The summit will be opened by New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg, who himself is an exemplar of citizen service, and will be closed by California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is the first governor to create a cabinet post to oversee service and volunteering.

The great American promise to protect “Life Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness” is being in direct attack since national service is neither life and liberty nor the pursuit of happiness. In a big push to eradicate the American promise those organization calling for to transform the American society to a big labour camp with forced labor prisoners as a condition for citizenship, which is their right by nature.

There is one hope, however, that despite the growing popularity and the willingness of many americans to put their head under the harness of slavery this idea will not pass. The only hope is that the supreme court will not allow legislation that is, by its nature, in direct contradiction to the 13th amendment:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.