Thursday Open Thread

The run-off election is Tuesday, but feel free to vote early!

Karen Handel’s rally with Sarah Palin will be Monday at the InterContinental Hotel in Buckhead. So, avoid that area. Although, the homemade signs could be comedy gold!

Also, someone try to sell me on either Gail Buckner or Georganna Sinkfield for Secretary of State. I’m undecided, but leaning towards Sinkfield.


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19 responses to “Thursday Open Thread”

  1. JMPrince Avatar

    Taking Pabsts to yet another world for forgotten wars: (Film/exhibition):
    http://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2010/08/03/g-w-pabsts-westfront-1918/
    JMP

  2. JMPrince Avatar

    Some pictures of the original carnage, never published in Life, but collected here, along with other sets of the era of the dawning of the bomb & Atomic age & the end of WW11:
    http://www.life.com/image/first/in-gallery/46282/never-seen-hiroshima-and-nagasaki
    JMP

  3. JMPrince Avatar

    The typically required but still funny rebuttal to all the furious Fox/Rethug propaganda on the perils of a ‘Mosque at Ground Zero’, by the wonderful Sam Seder doing his usual ‘That’s BS!’ beat: Watch:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPPxBrtrH1c

    JMP

  4. JMPrince Avatar

    Now for the usual Depression beat: Again, what part of the last Depression was your favorite?

    salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/08/06/collapse/index.html

    What that looks like in Simple Graphic form:
    calculatedriskimages.blogspot.com/2010/08/employment-recessions-july-2010.html

    Prescient Economist Dean Baker tells us in very short pithy report why the jobs pic is pitiful:
    http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-08-06/jobs-report-for-july-is-bleak-says-dean-baker/full/

    JMP

  5. JMPrince Avatar

    For lack of any other open thread we now present more of the economics of your life. Here: Via the excellent & non partisan CBPP.org:
    http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3258&emailView=1

    “State-By-State Numbers: Critical Fiscal Relief at Stake In Tuesday’s House Vote”

    By Michael Leachman, Matt Broaddus and Erica Williams
    August 6, 2010
    Chart of the states: “States stand to lose significant amounts of fiscal relief if legislation that the Senate approved yesterday, and the House is due to take up next week, fails to become law. The level of losses is shown on a state-by-state basis in the table below”. [See Link] JMP

  6. JMPrince Avatar

    Updates on the world of your parents & grandparents, now in Color: (Some amazing pics of the South & Ga. here):

    http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2010/07/26/captured-america-in-color-from-1939-1943/

    JMP

  7. JMPrince Avatar

    Well despite knowing that one of the Sec of State candidates is the favorite of some progressives, (Hi Guys!), I wanted to speak in favor of Ms. Buckner. (Again Not an endorsement, just an Argument here, and we all know how we all luv that!)

    Looking at the 2 contrasting websites you do get the general flavor of the race. Gail Buckner is well versed in the problem & issues of elections & voting & voting tech today: http://www.gailbuckner.com/gb_cleanelections.html.

    Contrastingly Ms. Sinkfield does not seem to have much depth here on this issue to be seen. I’ve heard Gail on the stump many times, and she has gotten around the state campaigning and seems to well understand the issues facing the SoS & the voters of Ga. Further, Buckner did win in 143 of our 159 counties, likely making her the most competitive going up against GOP incumbent Brian Kemp. So it’s a tough choice for some, and certainly both ladies are smart, capable, competent public servants with long histories & (mostly) admirable records. We might prefer one over the other if this was for a run-off for Congressional seat say. But it’s not. This is for the Sec. of State, which is a unique position here in Ga. & in many states.

    I urge anyone who’s concerned about our election process & the way voting is handled & has been Miss Handled in the past to go to Gail Buckner’s website and read though her carefully considered, well thought out positions & solutions to some of these persistent problems. I certainly do not agree with everything she’s said there or done elsewhere. Still I think on balance, she’s one of the few candidates who actually comes to the job with some clear & deep understanding of some of the real issues & problems facing us today concerning voting & elections.

    That’s it, again Just an Argument here, and one I make knowing, liking, & respecting both candidates too. JMP

  8. JMPrince Avatar

    More documentation & a slight correction. That last full sentence should read ‘Do Please Note…’

    There’s this:

    “Physicists and the 1945 Decision to Drop the Bomb
    Nina Byers
    Physics and Astronomy Department
    UCLA
    Los Angeles, CA 90095”

    http://arxiv.org/html/physics/0210058
    arXiv:physics/0210058v1 [physics.hist-ph] 13 Oct 2002

    Lots more debate & stuff online about this too. Some start here, it’s where most of those physicists did after the war: thebulletin.org/

    JMP

  9. JMPrince Avatar

    Before getting back to other things, we commemorate today, Aug 6, (Fri), when in 1945 Hiroshima was bombed with one of the 1st Atomic bombs. It’s often asked why? There’s many dimensions to the question. But one is reasonably simple to understand. Gen. Curtis LeMay left only a very few Japanese cities unbombed by May & June 1945. There were almost none which had not been firebombed in the months leading up to the first military use of atomic weapons Aug 6 & 9th, 1945. Why only those 2 cities, Hiroshima & Nagasaki? Basically it was all that we had produced up until then. And despite the unprecedented carnage & destruction wrought by these ‘special weapons’, LeMay’s flyers in their B-29’s had already killed more civilians ‘conventionally’ than would the final use of Atomic weapons in WW11. Most of the scientists who built the bombs wanted them demonstrated 1st before actual use on an enemy. They were overruled by the military & civilian commanders at the time, of which Harry Truman was one.

    Then everyone wanted their own nukes and it got noisier. And a whole lot more radioactive, actually. We present an animated map of nuclear explosions from 1945-1998. Do please not the silence from the US After the Clinton era. Via Boing Boing.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfpQNfcRE1o&feature=player_embedded

    JMP

  10. JerryT Avatar
    JerryT

    Huckabee is endorsing Nathan Deal? Wow, this is getting better and better.

  11. Jen B. Avatar
    Jen B.

    Thanks Tim & Jules!

  12. Jules Avatar
    Jules

    Georganna has been endorsed by many progressive heavy hitters; Atlanta Stonewall just endorsed her today, Planned Parenthood, Dr. Lowery, Hank Johnson and half the GA General Assembly.. if that helps.

    I will be voting for her, and will do so happily. She was always very nice to me when I was working at the Capitol..

  13. Tim Cairl Avatar
    Tim Cairl

    well, it may help a few voters to know that Gail did vote for the ban on gay marriage in 2004. Sinkfield did not.

  14. PaulaG Avatar
    PaulaG

    I’m touched. Sniff.

  15. King Jerk Avatar

    Changed my gravatar juts for PaulaG

  16. Sara Avatar
    Sara

    This post was cut off on the Twitter feed so it just ends with “Karen Handel’s rally with Sara…”

    For the record, I will not be rallying anywhere near Karen Handel.

  17. MouthoftheSouth Avatar
    MouthoftheSouth

    and by “tomorrow” I mean Tuesday.

  18. King Jerk Avatar

    Imagine what the turnout would be if we had AgComm in a runoff. lawl.

  19. MouthoftheSouth Avatar
    MouthoftheSouth

    I really wish I could convince myself it mattered. Is that the only race? I cannot imagine that will bring much of a turnout. I think you will find out exactly how many people always vote, no matter what, tomorrow. I will predict a 4% dem turnout for Fulton County.

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