Barack travels to Colorado Springs, CO today, where he will discuss his plan for national service. As president, Barack will ask us to be active citizens and take part in addressing the challenges we face both at home and abroad.
You can watch Barack’s speech live at approximately 11:00 AM Mountain Time.
Here are some details from Barack’s plan…
Encourage military service:
There is no challenge greater than the defense of our nation and our values. Our military has answered brilliantly when called, even as that call has come too often. But we need to ease the burden on our troops–and that’s why Barack Obama will call on a new generation of Americans to join our military, and complete the effort to increase our ground forces by 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 Marines.
To maintain a sacred trust with all who put on the uniform of the United States, Obama will provide them with the equipment needed to complete their mission safely, and deployments that allow adequate time back home. They must see that we’ll care for our military families while they’re deployed, and that we’re providing our veterans with thesupport, benefits, and opportunity that they have earned when they return home.
Create new opportunities for Americans to serve–and tackle our national challenges:
As President, Barack Obama will expand AmeriCorps to 250,000 slots and make that increased service a vehicle to meet national goals like providing health care and education, fighting climate change and restoring our standing in the world.
He’ll send more college graduates to teach and mentor our young people and call on Americans to join an Energy Corps to work on renewable energy projects in their communities. And he’ll launch an initiative to give our veterans the training they need to succeed in the green jobs of the future.
Obama will also grow our Foreign Service, open consulates that have been shuttered, and double the size of the Peace Corps by 2011 to renew our diplomacy.
Invest in social innovation:
While the federal government invests billions in research and development for the private sector, there is no similar effort to support non-profit innovation. Meanwhile, there are ideas across America that could benefit millions if they’re given the chance to grow.
As President, Obama will launch a new Social Investment Fund Network so that we can get the grass roots, the foundations, the faith-based organizations, the private sector, and the government to come to the table and learn from our own success stories. He’ll invest in ideas that work; leverage private sector dollars to encourage innovation; and expand successful programs to scale.
Build service into education:
Barack Obama believes that we need to integrate service into education, so that young Americans are prepared to be active citizens. And Study after study shows that students who serve do better in school, are more likely to go to college, and more likely to maintain that service as adults.
Obama will set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year. This means that by the time you graduate college, you’ll have done 17 weeks of service.
To help accomplish that goal, Obama will require 100 hours of annual public service from every recipient of the $4,000 college tax credit that he’s proposed. That bargain will ensure sure that college is affordable for every single American, while preparing our nation to compete in the 21st century.
Invesco Field in Denver, Home of the Denver Broncos
Marc Ambinder says that the Democrats will announce the venue for Barack Obama’s acceptance of the party nomination for President tomorrow.
For the day, August 28th the Democrats will move from the Denver Pepsi Center to Invesco Field. The field, the home of the NFL’s Denver Broncos seats around 75,000.
Invesco is an open air stadium with no retractable roof. This will make a pretty picture for television as the Democrats will pack the place but if it rains or there are thunderstorms……..August is the fourth highest average rainfall month for Denver.
Earlier today, Barack, Michelle, Malia and Sasha attended an Independence Day Parade in Butte, Montana. During the parade, Barack shook hands with supporters, kissed babies, signed autographs and posed for pictures. ; Here are pictures and video from the event…
So why are you hearing more about autism? According to Huliq News in a June 29th piece mentioning The Boy in the Window, a book by 66-year-old Barbara Coppo, whose autistic son, Kenny, is 29 years old, this is why:
Perhaps we are hearing more about autism in the news because there are more autistic children in America than ever before. The CDC’s most recent study estimates one out of every 150 children over the age of 8 is autistic or suffers from a related disorder. Today, 560 thousand Americans under the age of 21 have autism. That number is hundreds of thousands higher than just 30 years ago.
Autism may frighten people because so little is known about the disorder. The cause has not been scientifically proven and the victims often act in ways society doesn’t understand.
The Huliq News cites the recent cases of Adam Race, Alex Barton, and Jarret Farrell, all of whose stories have received much attention in the media. (The Huliq News also cites an otherwise undocumented incident in which “another mother and autistic toddler were kicked off an airplane in Huston reportedly because the boy was repeating ‘bye, bye plane’ during the safety speech.”)
There’s no speculation in the article about why there are more autistic children. EpiWonk, whose author holds a Ph.D. in Epidemiology and has worked for “more than 30 years as an epidemiology professor in medical academia and schools of public health,” takes another look at Trends in Autism Prevalence: Diagnostic Substitution Revisited:
Several weeks ago I argued that much of the the observed increase in autistic disorder over time can be explained by three phenomenon: (1) Diagnostic criteria have changed over some part of the period during which increases have been observed. The diagnostic criteria for autistic disorder were broadened over time. (2) The average age of diagnosis for autistic disorder became younger. (3) The efficiency of ascertainment (the probability that a true case is identified) has increased with greater awareness of the condition, introduction of new treatments and new resources, advocacy, broadening of diagnostic experience, and changes in diagnostic practices.
EpiWonk cites a small study in England in which it was found that adults who received a diagnosis of pragmatic language disorder in childhood might now have been diagnosed with autism (see also Translating Autism’s review). This study was small (38 adults were involved)—-the July 2008 issue of the the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders has a “much larger and more elegant study” by Helen Coo and Hélène Ouellette-Kuntz of the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology, Queens University, and Jennifer E. V. Lloyd of the Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP), and three other authors:
The authors examined trends in assignment of special education codes to British Columbia (BC) school children who had an autism code in at least 1 year between 1996 and 2004, inclusive. The proportion of children with an autism code increased from 12.3/10,000 in 1996 to 43.1/10,000 in 2004; 51.9% of this increase was attributable to children switching from another special education classification to autism (16.0/10,000). Taking into account the reverse situation (children with an autism code switching to another special education category (5.9/10.000)), diagnostic substitution accounted for at least one-third of the increase in autism prevalence over the study period.
EpiWonk is off on vacation so we’ll have to await his return for a full analysis. The study he refers to looks at the rise of the prevalence of autism in Canada; Paul Shattuck, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis has also studied diagnostic substitution in regard to the rise in children being diagnosed with autism. While the rates of the autism diagnosis increased from 1994 to 2003, Shattuck notes, the rates of diagnoses of mental retardation and learning disabilities decreased. There are more children being diagnosed with autism, that is, because it’s autism that is being diagnosed more.
Claims of an epidemic of autism are just that, claims and assumptions based on what people feel and perceive. But where did you first hear about an “epidemic of autism”?
I heard about it on the internet, and the word seemed to fit with our experience of finding that autistic kids like Charlie were not as “rare” as the more official sort of books proclaimed and as our eyes seemed to tell us: Why was that other little boy staring at the stream of sand he was sifting in front of his eyes? Why were there so many other families (as it seemed) clamoring for the hours of the speech therapist we needed for Charlie? How come we had to wait so many months to have Charlie evaluated at the Child Development Clinic at the Minneapolis Children’s Hospital?
At one point, I even bought Jim a t-shirt (maybe from this organization—no longer have the shirt) that had the words “the silence epidemic” on it. Meaning that, I’d have to say I heard about the “epidemic” from a t-shirt or a website, not world’s most valid sources…..I have source amnesia.
As Sam Wang, associate professor of molecular biology and neuroscience at Princeton University, and Sandra Aamodt, a former editor in chief of Nature Neuroscience (and co-authors of this book), write in a June 27th New York Times op-ed, source amnesia is a way to describe the “quirky way in which the brain stores memories”:
The brain does not simply gather and stockpile information as a computer’s hard drive does. Facts are stored first in the hippocampus, a structure deep in the brain about the size and shape of a fat man’s curled pinkie finger. But the information does not rest there. Every time we recall it, our brain writes it down again, and during this re-storage, it is also reprocessed. In time, the fact is gradually transferred to the cerebral cortex and is separated from the context in which it was originally learned. For example, you know that the capital of California is Sacramento, but you probably don’t remember how you learned it.
Source amnesia occurs when we “misremember” where we learned some piece of information; it can lead us to confusing truth and falsehood. Wang and Aamodt cite the example of public confusion about Senator Barack Obama’s religious beliefs. Sen. Obama is a Christian, but 10 percent of Americas think he is Muslim and “the Obama campaign has created a Web site to dispel misinformation.” Because:
A false statement from a noncredible source that is at first not believed can gain credibility during the months it takes to reprocess memories from short-term hippocampal storage to longer-term cortical storage. As the source is forgotten, the message and its implications gain strength. This could explain why, during the 2004 presidential campaign, it took some weeks for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against Senator John Kerry to have an effect on his standing in the polls.
Apply the phenomenon of source amnesia not only to claims of an epidemic of autism, but also to claims that vaccines or something in vaccines cause autism: When did you first hear of these? Where did you first hear of these—-from an email discussion list about autism? From a personal website on the internet? From your prone-to-worry mother-in-law? From an organization that (not that you were aware of this at the time; you had a lot else on your mind, like teaching your child to use a fork and say the first syllable of his name) states that various alternative treatments for autism can be effective and safe?
In the fourth book of the Aeneid, the epic about the founding of Rome by the poet Virgil, a being—indeed, a sort of beast—called Rumor grows and grows as reports of the arrival of the Trojan prince, Aeneas, are spread around Carthage, the northern African city that Aeneas has been shipwrecked in. Carthage is ruled by a queen, Dido, who has fallen in love with Aeneas, and a Libyan king, Iarbas (who had been hoping to win the queen’s hand himself) hears of this as does Jupiter, king of the Olympian gods himself. Rumor—fama in Latin—is the source:
????????????? … no other evil is swifter than her,
she thrives on speed, and gathers powers as she goes;
small when fear is fresh, soon she’s raised herself
up to the heavens, and walks on the ground
and hides her head amid the clouds. (Aeneid 4.174-177)
Now where was it you heard about an epidemic of autism and some of those reasons for it—-word of mouth?
Tags: asd, asperger, autism, autism blog, barack obama, brain, Health, measles, memory, mercury, mmr, Neuroscience, Parenting, pdd-nos, shots, source amnesia, VaccinesShare This (Source: Autism Vox)
This Saturday, while thousands of Unite for Change events were held across the country, Iowa Democrats met in Des Moines to hold their state convention. ; The party business of electing national delegates and voting on our state platform were the scheduled items on the agenda, but from the general atmosphere of the delegates, uniting our party around Barack Obama and down-ballot Democrats, was a top priority.
Watch the video below called “Voices from the Iowa Democratic Convention." ;
As we work together over these next weeks and months, without the support of millions of people all across the country, we won’t be able to take back our government from the special interests and lobbyists who have written our public policies for far too long. ; Help us deliver Barack’s message and grow our campaign for change by inviting you friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers to join us. ; Use the link below to invite someone to our campaign and start making a difference right now!
Barack Obama Pro- Gay political brochure
In a policy reversal Barack Obama has come out against The Limit on Marriage Constitutional Amendment, Proposition 8 which will be on California’s November Presidential ballot.
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, who previously said the issue of gay marriage should be left up to each state, has announced his opposition to a California ballot measure that would ban same-sex marriages.
In a letter to the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club read Sunday at the group’s annual Pride Breakfast in San Francisco, the Illinois senator said he supports extending “fully equal rights and benefits to same-sex couples under both state and federal law.”
“And that is why I oppose the divisive and discriminatory efforts to amend the California Constitution, and similar efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution or those of other states,” Obama wrote.
Obama had previously said he opposes same-sex marriage but that each state should make its own decision.
John McCain last week endorsed Proposition 8.
So, what does this mean in California?
Probably not much in the Presidential contest since California is a blue state where Obama should win handily. But, this may affect down Presidential ticket races like the Tony Strickland vs. Hannah-Beth Jackson California State Senate race. Strickland supports the constitutional ban on gay marriage and Jackson opposes it and favors gay marriage.
A direct contrast between Obama and McCain on the gay marriage issue will drive more evangelical and other Christian groups to the polls. Also, it will aid the GOP and the Strickland campaign in fundraising.
Flap is positive that the California Democrat Party would have desired Obama to stay out of this gay marriage fray. But, now that he has weighed in AND flip-flopped his position they will have to defend it.
Advantage GOP.
Previous:Gay Marriage Activists Try to Block California Initiative Vote
Technorati Tags: gay marriage, John McCain, Barack Obama, Tony Strickland, Hannah-Beth Jackson (Source: FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog)
Day By Day by Chris Muir
Yet, Chris, Americans thus far have forgiven or at least turned their head the other way with Barack Obama’s association with:
Jeremiah Wright - God Damn America preaching black liberation Pastor for over 20 years
Michael Pfleger - Anti-American racist priest
William Ayers - Far left Radical terrorist bomber
Bernardine Dohrn - Far left Radical terrorist bomber
Jodie Evans - Co-founder Code Pink
If Obama had been on the RIGHT, the MSM would have had him for lunch.
Is Flap missing something here?
Previous:
The Day By Day Archive (Source: FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog)
Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., center, speaks during his campaign stop in Fargo, N.D., July 3, 2008
In a shocking reversal of Iraq War policy, Barack Obama moves to the RIGHT and now says he would be open to “redefine my policies” about a timeline for withdrawing troops after meeting with American military commanders during his trip to Iraq next month.
Mr. Obama, whose popularity in the Democratic primary was built upon a sharp opposition to the war and an often-touted 16-month gradual timetable for removing combat troops, dismissed suggestions that he was changing positions in the wake of reductions in violence in Iraq and a general election fight with Senator John McCain.
“I’ve always said that the pace of withdrawal would be dictated by the safety and security of our troops and the need to maintain stability. That assessment has not changed,” he said. “And when I go to Iraq and have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I’m sure I’ll have more information and will continue to refine my policies.”
Another flip-flop for Obama. Damn, this POL is flipping more than Mitt Romney or pancakes.
The Iraq war - a war Obama opposed before he was for it.
Just as Jeremiah Wright said the first time - just a politician. Flap will add - what a phony.
Plus Ca Change
Technorati Tags: Barack Obama, John McCain, Iraq War, Iraq (Source: FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog)
Barack Obama in Muslim dress-up during visit to Kenya near the borders with Somalia and Ethiopia
What is good for the goose is not good enough for the gander apparently.
Two Muslim women at Barack Obama’s rally in Detroit Monday were barred from sitting behind the podium by campaign volunteers seeking to prevent the women’s headscarves from appearing in photographs or on television with the candidate.
The campaign has apologized to the women, all Obama supporters who said they felt betrayed by their treatment at the rally. (Source: FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog)
The message of this campaign has always been about bringing people together. Now, as we start working on the general election, people across the country are holding Unite for Change events to spread the message of unity and bringing about change from the bottom up.
One of these events took place in Eagle County, where Peggy, a volunteer who had been actively involved in the February caucus, invited her neighbors over for brunch to help reach out to new supporters and help grow the movement for change.
After some conversation, blueberry pancakes and bacon, Peggy sat down with a group of neighbors, people from nearby counties, and even a couple out-of-state supporters to talk about what issues are important to them and how their involvement in the campaign and their community can change America.
Peggy shared her story:
I was like so many others, where you think ‘I go and I vote for president and I’m really just trying to decide who I don’t want more than who I want.’ And until this man, Barack Obama, came along, that’s what it was for me. I was very cynical; I didn’t think there was any hope for this country. And then I thought about my three grand children and I realized they’re going to have fewer opportunities in life — for education, for living a good life, for work opportunities; unless I care about it and I get involved.
Many of the people who came to the meeting were new to politics or had not been involved for a number of years. Others had supported different candidates during the caucus, but all of them were excited to talk about the campaign and how they wanted to engage their communities and build our grassroots movement.
Later yesterday evening, another Unite for Change event took place in Evergreen, where Katherine invited people from the surrounding area to her house, where they talked about policy and what led them to get involved in Senator Obama’s campaign.
Here’s a video of the two events:
Across the country Democrats, Republicans and Independents are coming together to discuss what changes they would like to see in their community and their country. You can host one of these events or find one near you.
