Top Down solutions, and other such myths

by jamess

Imagine you just moved into a New Place to live -- and after a week or so you realize that the place is very drafty and cold.  Brrrr!

What do you do?

If you're of the school of thought that "Top Down" Investments are the Laissez faire way to fix things

-- you do nothing except crank up the Thermostat and starting paying the higher Utility Bills  (ie. just keep throwing more money at it.)

If you're of the school of thought that "Bottom Up" Investments are the best way to "permanently" solve most any problem

-- you weather strip your windows, you insulate your attic etc.  (ie. you invest in things that actually address the problem and help it to be minimized, AND its continual costs.)

larger

PS. "Bottom Up" Investments actually Help to put other People to work too ... instead of just throwing that Cash --  "Out the the Window" !

continued at Daily Kos....

I am so sad...

by Richard Cranium

I don't even know where to start.  It's like I've been kicked in the gut over the past week.  Repeatedly.

The Gulf of Mexico is being destroyed.  But it's apparently not that big of a deal.  Mothers let their kids swim in the muck, and then say they'll get some Goo Gone to clean them off.  There's no national outrage about this?

250,000 lives a week will be destroyed because the Senate decided to recess, that a vacay was important, more important than resolving unemployment compensation funding for millions of their fellow citizens.

Day by day, I see more silent suffering by those of us who just hang on, day to day.  And I fear there is no future for us.  I am so sad...

continued at Daily Kos....

Tipping Point? ACLU "disgusted" by Obama admin.; Labor too? UPDATE

by Vtdblue

Given the light shone on the White House's disdainful views of organized labor after the recent pyrrhic Lincoln primary victory in Arkansas, we may be reaching a critical, and potentially perilous tipping point in Democratic support for the president.  This loss of support clearly now ranges well beyond "educated white progressives," and now includes increasing percentages of the traditional activist Democratic base. Yesterday the ACLU Executive Director, Anthony Romero appears to have opened a talk at the progressive America's Future Now conference with this statement, as tweeted by Marcy Wheeler:  "I'm going to start provocatively . . . I'm disgusted with this president." I see this as further evidence that president Obama and his White House advisers have entered a Beltway bubble that may end up costing it and the Democratic Party (and by extension, US) dearly both this fall and in 2012.

continued at Daily Kos....