Mark's Views, Perhaps — from behind my eyeballs
Conscripts for the US military, that is.
Possible draftees, you know.
The House Armed Services Committee took a big and unexpected step toward making women register for the draft Wednesday night…
This amendment to the House’s annual defense authorization bill requires 18-to-26-year-old women to register with the Selective Service System. Read it all
Well, Congress, anyway. 🙄
Still, this is pretty funny.
And telling.
Of how the language continues to suffer twisting.
And of how words yield so easily to…ah…something.
Like vegetables. Read it all
Some comments and some questions, none of them intended to be political even though they reflect on and about a political issue:
And a government cover-up is better? 😐
And…the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, decided not to make public hundreds of pages of research and warnings about the use of phones by drivers — in part, officials say, because of concerns about angering Congress.
Help me out — why would that make Congress mad?
“We’re looking at a problem that could be as bad as drunk driving, and the government has covered it up,” said Clarence Ditlow, director of the Center for Auto Safety.
Here we go again. Somebody is going to tell me I can’t carry on a conversation while I’m driving. Come to think of it, I don’t talk much while I’m driving. I don’t drink much either.
The highway safety researchers estimated that cellphone use by drivers caused around 955 fatalities and 240,000 accidents over all in 2002.
That is astounding, but how do they go about estimating such things?
The research mirrors other studies about the dangers of multitasking behind the wheel. Research shows that motorists talking on a phone are four times as likely to crash as other drivers, and are as likely to cause an accident as someone with a .08 blood alcohol content.
😯
So, just add a new dimension to DUI. Maybe something along the lines of Driving Under the Influence of Conversation.
Wait a minute — why am I wasting my time here again????!!!! 🙁
One more thing: Will the time come when we attach drunk driving stigma to distracted driving?
Read the rest of the New York Times story here: In 2003, U.S. Withheld Data Showing Cellphone Driving Risks.
1803 — Chief Justice John Marshall declares that any act of US Congress that conflicts with the Constitution is void. What would he have to say today?!
1835 — The original Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus is formed in Kirtland, Ohio.
1849 — James Knox Polk becomes the first serving President of the United States to have his photograph taken. Subsequent Presidents have shown an inability to kick the habit.
1859 — Oregon is admitted as the 33rd US state.
1876 — Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray apply (though not jointly) for a patent for the telephone.
1899 — Voting machines are approved by the US Congress for use in federal elections. “It will eliminate fraud, confusion, and disenfranchisement.”
1912 — Arizona is admitted as the 48th US state.
1945 — On the second day of the bombing, the British Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces begin fire-bombing Dresden, Germany. So that’s how The Greatest Generation fought?! Imagine the uproar if that had been done in Iraq and Afghanistan!
1949 — Israel’s Parliament (the Knesset) convenes for the first time. Praise God!
1977 — Mark Roth gives Ruby Yoder a Valentine card for the first time. I think that’s right!
1989 — The first of 24 satellites of the Global Positioning System is placed into orbit. GPS is twenty years old today. Wow!
2009 — What’s noteworthy that happened today?
Reboot!
| Well, actually boot is more accurate:
If given the choice, a new poll reveals, 59 percent of Americans would sweep Capitol Hill clean of the current batch of senators and representatives to elect an entirely new Congress. |
“If given the choice”?! What’s that supposed to mean? Every two years they get the choice to sweep the House! Anyway, back to the article:
| Only 17 percent of those polled said they would be willing to keep the current Legislature.
Rasmussen Reports conducted the national telephone survey on the heels of Congress passing a widely unpopular financial bailout bill, revealing a significant amount of voter dissatisfaction with the nation’s current legislators. The polling firm records a mere 30 percent of voters approved of the bailout, while 45 percent were opposed, and yet Congress passed it, leaving behind some highly critical voters. |
Wow! Seventeen percent. But will they actually vote that way? I suspect not.
That aside, though, let’s hear it for Congress: They actually voted against the polled wishes of the electorate. Sometimes it seems the Congress can’t win. If they vote by the polls, they’re castigated for that. If they vote contrary to the polls, they’re accused of disregarding the will of the American people.
Two more items from the story:
| Further, less than half (49 percent) believe the current Congress is any more capable than a group of people plucked from the phone book, and nearly a third (33 percent) think the phone book congress would do a better job.
Despite the Legislature’s dismal 11 percent approval rating, Rasmussen Reports pointed out that 90 percent of Congress is likely to remain following this November’s election. |
Oh wait. Get a load of this:
| Rasmussen Reports dug into history to reveal that for well over 100 years after the U.S. Constitution was adopted, congressional turnover in national elections averaged about 50 percent. Following the New Deal era, however, those numbers began to decline. Since 1968, no national election has managed to muster even a 10 percent turnover. |
So there you are.
Reuters claimed yesterday: McCain-Obama tie possible in presidential race.
I thought we went through that in the last (ie Bush-Kerry) Presidential election. Or was it the previous (ie Bush-Gore) one? Or was it both.
Now they’re trotting out the same story again? 🙄
Maybe that’s their admission that the ObamaByLandslide polling they’re releasing isn’t as convincing to them as they want it to be to the American public. 😯
| What if it’s a tie?
A handful of battleground states are likely to determine the November 4 U.S. presidential election and it’s possible that Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama could split them in a manner that leaves each just short of victory. If that happens, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives would pick the president but it’s unclear whether Democrats would have enough votes to send Obama to the White House. The House last decided an election in 1824. But the legal skirmishing and partisan rancor would probably resemble a more recent election — the 2000 vote in which Republican George W. Bush narrowly defeated Democrat Al Gore after a disputed Florida vote count and legal battle. |