i_rabbit

Will history teach us nothing?

“The national budget must be balanced.  The public debt must be reduced.  The arrogance of the authorities must be moderated and controlled.  Payments to foreign governments must be reduced, if the nation doesn’t want to go bankrupt.  People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.”

- Marcus Tullius Cicero in Rome, 55 BC

“The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices - to be found only in the minds of men.
“For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own — for the children, and the children yet unborn.“  ~  Rod Sterling

As long as you are free to speak your truth, this is a Democracy. Still. Sometimes just barely. Word up Keith.

A friend sent this link to the Party Matchmaker, which proports to reveal which political party you should support based on your answer to 25 questions about “what you would do if you were in charge”.

No suprise with my results here.

1) Reform Party 76%
2) Green Party 71%
3) Libertarian Party 65%
4) Democratic Party 47%
5) Constitution Party 47%
6) Republican Party 41%
7) Natural Law Party 41%

Make up your own mind…

“This is the best damn 9-11 documentary out there.” -Dave vonKleist

Here is a brief synopsis of the results, as reported by CommonDreams, in alphabetical order:

1. BP - In 2001, a maintenance worker at the facility died after falling into a tank that had been shut down. Nationwide, BP’s facilities have had more than 3,565 accidents since 1990, ranking first in the nation, according to a 2004 report by the Texas Public Interest Research Group (TexPIRG).
2. Delphi - In its bankruptcy filings, the company stated that three problems are driving down revenues: the wages and benefits guaranteed under existing union contracts, declining sales from GM, Delphi’s main buyer, and rising commodity prices. Through bankruptcy, it sought to address only the first issue — that is, to attack the living standards of its workers.
3. Dupont - “What’s the appropriate fine for a $25 billion company that for decades hid vital health information about a toxic chemical that now contaminates every man, woman and child in the United States?” asked EWG President Ken Cook. “What’s the proper dollar penalty for a pollutant that will never break down, and now finds its way into polar bears in the Arctic and human babies in their mothers’ wombs? We’re pretty sure it’s not $16 million, even if that is a record amount under a federal law that everyone acknowledges is extremely weak.”
4. ExxonMobil - It hasn’t hurt ExxonMobil to have a (failed) oilman and the former head of Halliburton, an oil services company, as president and vice president of the richest, most powerful and biggest greenhouse-gas-emitting country, the United States. The company was not without influence during the Clinton administration, but has been able to gain complete access and shape policy during the Bush era, in ways large and small.
5. Ford - It turns out that over a period of years, Ford Motor Company dumped millions of gallons of paint sludge into a now-residential area of northern New Jersey.
6. Halliburton - The company has effectively made a business model of crooked dealings with the U.S. government. Getting caught, over and over, doesn’t seem to affect things much.
7. KPMG - The Attorney General of the United States said that KPMG “has admitted to criminal wrongdoing in the largest-ever tax shelter fraud.”
8. Roche - Roche “fully intends to remain the sole manufacturer of Tamiflu,’’ company spokesperson Terry Hurley told reporters. That has provided a windfall for Roche. 2005 sales of Tamiflu are expected to top $1 billion.
9. Suez - Suez has been a leading purveyor and beneficiary of the global trend of water privatization — the selling off of public water systems to private entities, or the turning over of control and management of public systems to corporations such as Suez.
10. W.R. Grace - What does it take to get federal prosecutors to indict an asbestos company for endangering the health of the community?