Politics

Healthcare and Financial Reform

Politics as Usual

Another week flew by but a couple important things happened in Washington. The entire week was pretty much wrapped around healthcare reform which was passed late yesterday by the house, the bill will now go to the President for signing.

The cartoon on the right addresses both major issues currently on the table: the healthcare and financial reform bills. Actually, there was a little more that happened this week including a supreme court ruling upheld, continuing saga in the middle east and I have to mention again, that Texas is officially changing the history books! Crazy, huh? Good cartoons though.

Supreme Court Upheld Ruling

The supreme court upheld a ruling last week that eliminates the ability of the political and legal systems to control or impose any limits on corporate political spending. This of course, was bound to happen and all the politicians knew it. This is why Obama has been so strongly opposed, he was using it for political gain knowing his rhetoric would make no difference. It is pretty similar to term limits, every politician is for them when asked and yet they've never made it to law.

Last Week in

Politics

Another week has went by and the gubmint hasn't made any progress on the objectives laid out by our Commander and Chief. Let's be honest, their not even trying. The only progress being made is in the areas that help corporations get more tax dollars, Bush can't hold a candle to Obama when it comes to value to the corporate state. There are some other interesting tidbits of news this week that warrant at least some ridicule and disgust from the citizens, I'll try and document those items below. One thing is becoming clear, Americans are pretty much fed up with Washington and politics as usual - incumbents beware!

Open Letter to President

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Startup Visa Act Final Final

Startup Visa.com

Is this good for Americans?

Senators Kerry (D-MA) and Lugar (R-IN) introduced what's known as the Startup Visa Act in Washington today. The full text of the legislation is attached if you care to read it, the document is only seven pages in double spaced text so not much to read.

The Legislation

Basically, the legislation requires modification of the existing EB-5 Visa in order "to drive job creation in the US and increase global competitiveness." The intention is to allow immigrant entrepreneurs to easily acquire visas in order to start these new companies that will create jobs. For each start-up company there may be up to three founders that would get the two (2) year visas along with their spouse and children.

Initial Qualifying Requirements

LAST WEEK IN POLITICS

Another busy week in the world of politics, things are heating up everywhere. The republicans and democrats are separated by a widening chasm, of course I think it is fabricated, at least on the serious money and power issues. Sure they throw grenades at each other but they rarely explode, they are just tossed back and forth like a hot potato. This week was no different, the hot potato issue was and will likely remain the stimulus package. Anyway, here are some of the relevant bullets of the week that caught my attention:

POLITICS and MASHUPS

MAKE GOOD FRIENDS

There are severeal sites that I lookup at for politics pretty much daily, several are traditional web sites with a little web 2.0 sprinkled in (comments, feeds, etc) but quite a few are mashups. A mashup in the simplest terms provides a consolidated picture that is derived from multiple sources. For example, iGoogle is a dynamic mashup where feeds, functions and services can be put on a single, consildated and customized view.

I thought it would be a good idea to share the love and point readers to these mashups, obviously you can decide for yourself if they are worth bookmarking and using again. Most of these mashups are combining multiple feeds and APIs to collect the data and make the presentation, this is a trend that is growing in popularity primarily driven by the ubiquitous use of the mobile platform browsing the internet.

The marriage between political content and mashups is a logical one, especially considering that the information gathered is spread over a number of locations and is in a number of different formats. The other driving factor, I think, is that much of the political data lends itself to mapping and mapping is the most popular web service on the internet - consider the phrase "there's a map for that". Obviously this is all made possible by the ability to get the data which means it has to be published and accessable, there are a number of entities to thank for this but I'll do that in another post.

GLOBAL WARMING?

After these storms you must be kidding...

It is really a shame that the discussions around global warming has resolved into a ridiculous shouting match. I knew it wouldn't be long before everybody was claiming the recent record snow event proves their point, whatever it is. The global warmers say this storm is just another indication of increased levels of energy in the atmosphere, while the deniers say that this storm is a clear indication the Earth is not warming.

It really is undeniable that the climate is warming up, this can be measured unambiguously through any number of methods but the most indisputable is the retreating glaciers at both poles. It is a shame that we are still debating this even after so much data has been collected. I know, the argument is the data is invalid and fabricated - unfortunately that may be true because there is a second and more nefarious agenda in play, it revolves around a carbon tax.

Let me stay on topic though, there are at least three parts to the global warming issue that create difficulties for me in understanding what is really going on, they are:

BILL H.R. 4502

NANOTECHNOLOGY EDUCATION ACT

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January 26, 2010

Finally, something positive to publish about the Federal Government. Oregon's House representative David Wu introduced a bill back in January that will strengthen institutions and their capacity to provide instruction in nanoscience (nanotechnology).

The bill, HR 4502, provides for appropriations in the sum of $40,000,000 for fiscal 2011 and assumes the same or more for the years 2012 through 2014. The bill contains just 5 sections (a..e) that describe the findings of Congress, purpose of the bill, definition of major parts, and authorization and appropriations language. A summary of each section is below:

a. Findings

The findings are not surprising indicating that nanotechnology will have a huge impact on the future of society which will extend into economic bliss. It highlights the disparity between United States students versus foreign students in the fields of science and engineering, specifying engineering doctorates as an example. It goes on to talk about the fact that we need to invest in the education as well as the tools required to deliver leading edge instruction.

b. Purpose

The following is an email my wife and I received today from friends of ours, it was written by a retired Sargent Major that was just in Haiti on a rescue mission. It is appauling but not at all surprising, especially the comments about the United Nations.

Retired Sgt Major's (USA Special Forces) Haiti Report

THE WOMAN THAT BROUGHT YOU THE

"DRILL BABY, DRILL"

PLATFORM

Last night the Tea Party convention that took place in Nashville Tennessee finished up its three day event with a Sarah Palin speech. Nashville is great place if you want to attract the religious right, which is clearly what they wanted to do.

So this is it, the alternative to the republicans and democrats, yea I'm buying it. The Tea Party and Drill baby drill as a platform. I actually tried to watch the speech but I couldn't finish it because like most political speeches it was insulting and too hard to get through. This was one of those times where the commercials were actually better than the content, similar to the always anticlimactic Super Bowl (new eTrade baby commercials tonight!).