I see the “Occupy Wall Street” folks are still there.
But what is puzzling me: usually a movement starts with a few activists and then slowly grows, as more who believe the same things join.
So exactly how many are in these rallies?
We know who is in the rallies: From Fastcompany.com via the Democratic underground.
Among the […]

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A lot of Republican bloggers in the US are rolling their eyes up in mockery at the report that President Obama plans to send in US troops to fight the so called “Lord’s Resistance army” in Uganda.
A typical response is this, from the National Review Blog The Corner:
This is even crazier than getting involved in […]

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A high stakes game is playing out mostly behind the scenes in Washington D.C.
The outcome of which will have lasting implications for how many businesses in America can operate.
One of the more controversial portions of the financial reform bill, passed in 2009, established a powerful new agency called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
From […]

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In my previous post, I wondered if the protesters on Wall Street had proposals of how to fix things, or if they were theoreticians from Nephelokokkygia.
So exactly what do those Wall Street protesters want?
A proposed list of demands can be found at their website. They don’t want much.
Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This […]

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Joe Biden’s visit to China has gotten little respect in the US press, who seem to despise his “everyday man” approach to things and who trumpet his verbal gaffes without noticing his common touch is something desperately needed by the elitist Obama administration.
During his trip to China, he visited an ordinary Chinese restaurant and ate […]

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The president is taking a much needed vacation, this time to Martha’s Vineyard.
So what does the Washington Post have for a headline this morning?
As rebels close in on Tripoli, Obama getting updates on Martha’s Vineyard
Why yes.
Martha’s Vineyard isn’t exactly in the middle of nowhere, and they do have internet connections, an airfield and a […]

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This year, for the first time, our accountant told us we don’t have to pay any US taxes.
So what do I hear in the news? Lots of right wing criticism of those stupid people who don’t pay taxes while the rest of “us” work hard and have to pay.
Time out, fellahs.
For years, my husband and […]

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A lot of Americans seem puzzled about why NATO is so eager to get rid of Khadafi in Libya. Yes, he was behind the TWA bombing, but why get rid of him now?
But what the US press also misses is why Libyans are angry. To paraphrase James Carville: It’s the corruption, stupid. Khadafi has billions […]

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Many years ago, conspiracy theorists claimed the US was fighting in Viet Nam in order to exploit the oil fields in the Spratlys islands.
This fact allowed the anti war humanitarians to dismiss the story that the US was there because a communist takeover of the region that would result in hundreds of thousand sent to […]

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Should we ask students to “give back” to society?
Actually, many do: all sorts of volunteers out there, such as the churches and religious groups helping to clean up after the recent tornadoes and floods. A lot of those doing so are following the family tradition. My grandkids routinely work at soup kitchens and in community […]

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US President has created a controversy involving Cyber Laws by using “Autopen” to sign a Bill. Mr Obama was abroad at the time the Bill had to be signed and he has authorized application of his signature with the use of the “Autopen” equipment.
The move has been approved by the legal department stating that the […]

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Well, this year’s Rolling Thunder motorcycle rally got some publicity today when Sarah Palin and family accompanied them as private citizens. As the mother of an Iraqi veteran, she is entitled to this.
Most of the half million attending the rally seemed pleased.
So of course most of the press coverage was about Andrea Mitchell finding the […]

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It was called “Operation Vengence”.
He had ordered the deaths of thousands of Americans using airplanes, and alerted the average American that a war of civilizations was now endangering them.
Therefore, the president used secret intelligence networks to find where the mastermind was hiding. And after some discussions, the president approved of the mission tasked to kill […]

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Like all Americans, I am happy that the terrorist leader Osama Ben Laden has been killed.
Yes, as a Catholic Christian I pray for his soul, but unlike Time Magazine, I believe in hell, especially since there is no evidence that he repented his murders of the innocent on three continents.
Yet shortly after the announcement, my […]

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Back in the “good old days”, a lot of states had “literacy tests” for voters. If you didn’t pass them, you couldn’t vote.
Of course, it was a scam: the real reason for the testing was to eliminate black voters, and the fight to remove the laws was part of the civil rights movement to allow […]

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If you want to go to Medical schools in the US, you have to take a test called an MCAT. It is to try to figure out if you are smart enough to be a doc or something like that. I’m not sure, since I predate that test.
At least in the past doctors were trained […]

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In light of certain events that have transpired in U.S. politics and economics in recent weeks, I offer my humble opinion as a citizen.
We all feel the pain and anguish for Japan right now, as well we should, but we know what has happened will lead to an endless discussion of nuclear power in this […]

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I’ve been too busy to watch the US news on our cable network, but the BBC reports are mainly about the fighting in Libya.
But here in the Philippines, the headlines are about our workers. You see, there are at least 25,000 Filipino OFW’s (”overseas foreign workers”) in Libya, and although the government has arranged a […]

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While the US headlines were full of Charlie Sheen’s rants and news of labor union protests in Wisconsin,  here in the Philippines, the headlines are about our stranded OFW (overseas foreign workers) in Libya.
Every paper has photos of those who escaped arriving at the Manila airport, and the Philippine Inquirer notes that the government arranged […]

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If you live in the US, mark your calenders: It’s the Great American Shake- out drill.

check out this link for more information.
so what do you do when an earthquake strikes?

when I lived in Minnesota, we always kept emergency supplies in our car (in case we got caught in a snowstorm or skidded off the […]

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The Washington post discovers that patients can find a lot of medical nonsense on line.
Well, duh. Every conspiracy theory known to man is on line. And the more outrageous, the more “hits” and readers you get.
One “advice” column on how to make money blogging suggested you stick to one type of blogging and […]

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In a previous post, I joked that if the Governor of Wisconsin wanted to fire all his teachers, he could hire a lot of qualified Filipino teachers to replace them.
Yet this is not quite a joke: The cut backs in US medical training have resulted in the active importation of foreign medical graduates to fill […]

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Clinton once had a line “It’s the economy, stupid”, and one longs for someone to teach economics to the present administration.
I was always a union supporter, and many of my family and friends belonged to unions. But you know what happened to a lot of textile jobs in the northern states in 1950’s and 1960’s? […]

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TedLipien.com, Truckee, CA, February 08, 2011 — One would think that the centennial of Ronald Reagan’s birthday could be a perfect public diplomacy theme for all U.S. embassies in Central and Eastern Europe — a great opportunity for embassy-sponsored events to strengthen ties with America among diverse nations that owe their current independence and […]

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When I heard that there had been a Native American prayer at the memorial ceremony in Tucson, I was not surprised.
When I lived on Indian Reservations, we commonly had such prayers at most ceremonies or meeting. But for memorial services, we often also had Christian clergy (usually either Anglican or Catholic) give a prayer. Tribes […]

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In my last essay, I argued that a lot of false assumptions have been made about the political shooting in Tucson, yet several attributing factors have been ignored, including the inability of the public and of public officials to recognize severe mental illness. 
An entertainment culture that glorifies and justifies deviant behavior and violent acts is […]

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The “meme” in much of the press is blaming right wing political talk for the tragedy in Tucson. Well, this is not new: I remember a similar paranoia against the right after JFK was killed in Dallas, never mind that his killer was a communist who had earlier tried to kill General Walker, a real […]

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En ce moment, il n’y a plus de pilote dans l’avion. [At the moment, there is no longer a pilot on the plane.] — A European comment on President Obama as a leader of the Free World.
TedLipien.com, Truckee, California, USA, January 03, 2011 — Who is the leader of the Free World when democracy […]

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The President just authorized a regulation to pay doctors to discuss end of life counseling during your yearly physical.
Well, good. I doubt any doc can do a true “in depth” discussion of end of life issues at the end of a 45 minute yearly physical, but since I’ve rarely been paid for the many long […]

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Update: America.gov restored Ted Lipien’s comment.
TedLipien.com, Truckee, California, December 27, 2010 — On the day the U.S. Senate voted to approve the new arms reduction treaty with Russia, I found an article on the State Depatment’s website, America.gov, which gave a long list of the START treaty’s benefits lauded by the Obama administration but […]

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