...standing in line to vote for the next president of the United States of America.

A simple diary this – but IMO so profound.

We’ve read anecdotal evidence from all over Texas and heard of ‘official’ reports of voter turnout at 12 to 18 times higher than the 2004 primaries.  And I do not think it’s all just because Texas has an opportunity to count this time around.

First the bankruptcy bill and now this...

From http://www.spywareinfo.com/...

Quoted only in part.

House Resolution 3997, the so called Financial Data Protection Act of 2006, is one of two bills floating around the US House of Representatives to address the situation. It really should be called the Financial Industry Protection Act of 2006.

What this misnamed piece of... "legislation"... proposes is that, when someone loses a laptop with the personal information of hundreds of thousands of people, the company that lost it can decide for themselves whether or not they should tell the people whose information was compromised. It also conveniently nullifies those troublesome state laws that otherwise would require them to contact those persons immediately.

More on the flip.

I'm gonna ramble a bit while I connect all the dots, so stick with me while we wander a bit - but I promise to being it all together at the end.

Dot #1.  It occurs to me that when we post a diary here about most any substantive subject, we are, for the most part, only preaching to the choir.  Many great ideas are presented, debated, modified, vetted and finalized in this and several dozen other similar forums.

But who (whom?) besides us political/policy geeks actually see these great ideas/discussions?  Do the truly great ideas get distributed widely?  It doesn't appear that they get to the `traditional media' very frequently.  And since I do not consume any of that form of information distribution, I can't really say for sure.  I'll leave that determination to the rest of my gentle readers of this diary.

Here in the blogosphere we whine, rant, rave and occasionally get a scoop out that the traditional media picks up for a news cycle or three.

But how much impact do we have?  Really.  Think about it.  We're enamored with the zillions of words that are posted and we congratulate ourselves on how pissed we are and how witty that pithy comment was and etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

But do we really do anything about it?

A modest proposal follows after the break.

Powerful. Succinct. And EXACTLY right!

Dr. Robin Meyers speaks for me.  How about you?

Please share this with your friends and family if you too believe that this message needs to be heard far and wide.

Leo

Complete text and link below the fold.

I read the Soldier's Story and immediately below the Al QaQaa story and just about freaked!

Steve Clemons is Executive Vice President of the New America Foundation and serves as Director of the Japan Policy Research Institute.  This guy's got more inside the beltway contacts than there are black hoodies left to be sold.

His is an excellent site with lots of info that cuts to the bone on many many issues.

Please read his latest Soldier's Story and recommend this piece so that it gets wide distribution!

Unlike Bush I haven't been "Born Again" and unlike Kerry I did not carry my religion with me into the Viet Nam war.  I've been a self-defined agnostic now for 40+ years.  As I get older - and hopefully wiser - I find that I am questioning my early-in-life rejection of the hypocrisy I found in the Christian mainstream religious doctrine of my parents.  Each of us must follow our own `feelings' on the issue of spirituality,  but I find myself wondering more often if I can throw away the teachings of early youth as I get closer to my own physical demise?  Your Mileage May Vary.

So I've - in a very casual way - started looking at what seems to make sense, not what various doctrines dictate.  Over here at American Bodhisattva (what a pretentious name for a blog!) there is a recent posting about rejecting the current shift of religion and church toward accepting the perpetual war on terror that Mr. Bush and cronies advocate.  How does this apply to the long term politics of winning the country back from the neo/paleo/social/religious conservatives? More below the fold.