November 14, 2012

Nancy, keep SS cuts 'off the table.'

I'll get more actve in 2014 IF the elected Democrats stand firm now, keeping SS cuts 'off the table,' entirely. If we can't accomplish that while 'we' control the Presidency & the Senate (and have Pelosi's leadership at the helm of the minority in the House), what would a few more seats really accomplish?

I'm not calling for anythng radical; I just want to see my President, with the support of Pelosi & Reid, stand firm for a core Democratic program, one which contributes nothing to the Deficit.

If Democrats cut Social Security now, I will switch my affiliation to Independent, because the D's will have shown that they stand for nothing.

-app

November 14, 2012

Time for Ireland to evolve away from this theocratic bullshit.

Maybe it's not my place to tell the Irish what to do.

But as someone who was raised in a half-Irish-American, way-too-Catholic family, I do feel confident to tell the Catholic Church that it needs to back the fuck away from the personal lives and decisions of women, and everyone else for that matter.

-app

November 8, 2012

Too true.

In my estimation, the entire elegant machinery of the Bill of Rights, bequeathed to us by our forefathers in good-running condition, is now rusty and creaky in the even the most-used gears. The cogs of the 10th Amendment are almost entirely seized and stripped of their teeth. But the Founders put that gear in there; it's up to us to get out the oil and wrenches and make the necessary repairs...

-app

November 2, 2012

Staten Island has (or maybe had) too many houses on TOP of marshes

I grew up in the hills of Staten Island (Sunset Hill / West Brighton) and ranged over every open patch of land there I could, but left for more rural locales after 1989. Too many of my favorite childhood patches of swampy woodland or saltwater marsh, places I loved to explore & walk my grandparents' dog & go birding or mushroom hunting, all fell to 'development.' The houses in Bull's Head now sit where freshwater wetlands would routinely drench me up to my knees or higher. The last time I was in Staten Island (years ago - 2005-ish?), a gas station sat atop some brackish wetlands in Linoleumville I distinctly remember having to swim across channels after getting a little lost. I was incredulous that it got permitted, but that's what big bucks and a 'mitigation' (BS) plan will buy you I guess. All asphalt now, so of course the storm waters rose higher!

I have nothing but compassion & respect for all the Staten Islanders who have lost their homes. This devastation is not their fault, except perhaps in the most tangential of ways that it is ALL our fault - all of us who drive cars and otherwise consume material and energy resources. HOWEVER, those assholes who rubber-stamped all the coastline development, all the wetlands in-fill, all the greedy over-development? They deserve nothing but contempt.

I agree, ChisolmTrailDem, many of the neighborhoods devastated by Sandy should NOT be rebuilt. This is a chance for wetlands restoration and some advance mitigation of the impacts of the NEXT storm, which will surely come. Plus, Staten Island could benefit from some more open-park space and public, natural waterfront lands.

-app