Oldest 100 .com domains

Let’s do a break from politics, shall we? This is a list of the 100 olders .com domains

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Making new stickers

Hey everyone!

As most of you know, before the election, we made stickers, and gave them away here http://officeofstrategicinfluence.com/stickers (no longer actively giving away).

We want to do another run of stickers for the Health Care initiative. But we need suggestions on what to put on these stickers.

Like before, we’ll be giving them away for free once they’re up.

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The Real Benefits of Cash-for-Clunkers

The cash-for-clunkers program is widely popular, but it’s easy to negatively spin this program. Opponents claim this programs pays people $4500 to destroy functional cars. That’s what the GOP senators see, and it’s why they are in opposition to this program. If that’s all this program did, then I would agree with them. But there are far more aspects of this program that are ignored that make it extremely beneficial to our economy.

For starters, the government pays $4500 for a functional car. This car then gets sold to the highest bidder for scrap/parts/recycling. Though not very often, sometimes the value of the parts are worth more than this. The point is, it’s not just $4500 being destroyed, it’s maybe a couple hundred.

Several things happen once the car is exchanged:

-Older cars, which are usually less safe than new cars due to evolving standards of safety, are brought off the road. This lowers insurance premiums and lowers medical cost averages.

-It increases the demand for new cars. That may sound like a “bailout for car companies”, but those car companies employ a lot of people, and employment is s really what’s needed to stimulate the economy.

-It increases the stock value of bellwether companies, which brings the stock exchange higher. When this happens, everyone wins. Companies begin hiring, consumer confidence goes up, people start spending again

-It brings down emission. This fact is the only one that really gets talked about in the news, which is why this program is such an easy target. After all, $4500 a car is a rather expensive way of dealing with improving emissions by 4 miles a gallon. Obviously if this is all the program was about,it wouldn’t fly

-Although it won’t cause a large stir, lowering gas consumption does improve supply, which brings down the costs. I don’t think this will be a large or maybe even noticeable difference, but it does contribute.

-This program increases consumer confidence. Since America’s market is about 70-ish percent consumer based, consumer confidence is a huge hurdle that needs to be breached before the economy can improve

-The cars that were traded in are parted, which allows for cheaper maintenance of cars on the road. Not only does this benefit private drivers, but it helps government costs as well. The government pays around $0.52 per mile after gas and maintenance is considered. This is all minor in my opinion, but worth mentioning anyway. If even a penny of that is eliminated, then the daily totals for moving around a million-car fleet (any government car from postal drivers to parking enforcement) is drastically reduced.

All of these benefits are afforded at the cost of a few hundred dollars per trade-in

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Think About the Vets! Palin on Ethics Complaints

Sarah Palin wants you to think about the vets when you file ethics complaints against her. On July 20th, Sarah Palin received her 19th ethics complaint.  Her Twitter account lit up with a rambling steam of conscious which she tried to mold into the argument that if you file an ethics complaint, then you don’t support the troops. Here is a direct copy/paste of her twitter thread (warning, it’ll hurt your brain to parse it into meaningful chunks of information):

“In violation of Ethics Act more allegations were filed today by serial complainer;gave to press be4 we could respond;ridiculous, wasteful…it costs political critics NOTHING to file/play their wasteful game;They should debate policy in political arena,not hide w/process abuse…BUT if there was a suit to end public waste of time/funds to constantly address false allegations I could see perhaps a veteran filing it…someone who’s put their life on the line protecting even opponents’ right to speak & protest, was willing to die for freedom of press but knows it’s shameful 4 valuable time& public resources to be diverted frm needed causes to deal w/this abuse of govt accountability system…Hopefully these political critics filing this stuff (& some in press perpetuating it) appreciate the freedom to do so, protected by our vets”

Here’s the summation: Ethics complaints are wasteful. That’s because vets die for the freedom of press. Because of that, we shouldn’t make ethics complaints, unless the complaint is filed against the people who are filing complaints about her…then it’s okay (and also, Vets should do it).

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Ten Things To Know About Judge Sonia Sotomayor

This was written by Nita, Kat, Daniel, Ilyse and the rest of the team at MoveOn.org

President Obama nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to be the next U.S. Supreme Court justice. Of course, the Right is already fighting against her confirmation–so we need to get the facts out about her impressive qualifications and background.

Below is a list of 10 key things about Sonia Sotomayor that you might not know about her.

1. Judge Sotomayor would bring more federal judicial experience to the bench than any Supreme Court justice in 100 years. Over her three-decade career, she has served in a wide variety of legal roles, including as a prosecutor, litigator, and judge.

2. Judge Sotomayor is a trailblazer. She was the first Latina to serve on the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and was the youngest member of the court when appointed to the District Court for the Southern District of New York. If confirmed, she will be the first Hispanic to sit on the
U.S. Supreme Court.

3. While on the bench, Judge Sotomayor has consistently protected the rights of working Americans, ruling in favor of health benefits and fair wages for workers in several cases.

4. Judge Sotomayor has shown strong support for First Amendment rights, including in cases of religious expression and the rights to assembly and free speech.

5. Judge Sotomayor has a strong record on civil rights cases, ruling for plaintiffs who had been discriminated against based on disability, sex and race.

6. Judge Sotomayor embodies the American dream. Born to Puerto Rican parents, she grew up in a South Bronx housing project and was raised from age nine by a single mother, excelling in school and working her way to graduate summa cum laude from Princeton University and to become an editor
of the Law Journal at Yale Law School.

7. In 1995, Judge Sotomayor “saved baseball” when she stopped the owners from illegally changing their bargaining agreement with the players, thereby ending the longest professional sports walk-out in history.

8. Judge Sotomayor ruled in favor of the environment in a case of protecting aquatic life in the vicinity of power plants in 2007, a decision that was overturned by the Roberts Supreme Court.

9. In 1992, Judge Sotomayor was confirmed by the Senate without opposition after being appointed to the bench by George H.W. Bush.

10. Judge Sotomayor is a widely respected legal figure, having been described as “…an outstanding colleague with a keen legal mind,” “highly qualified for any position in which wisdom, intelligence, collegiality and good character would be assets,” and “a role model of aspiration, discipline, commitment, intellectual prowess and integrity.”

Judge Sotomayor is an historic, uniquely qualified nominee to the Supreme Court. Let’s get the word out and make sure we get a prompt, fair confirmation on her nomination.

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A List of What’s Changed

Today someone said, “What exactly has ‘Changed’ under Obama? The rich get bailouts, torture goes unprosecuted, AIPAC decides the fate Of Iran, and Democrats are still silent accomplices in Bush-era war crimes.”

I hear questions like these a lot; as we get deeper into Obama’s presidency, people get antsy for news of improvement, as they expect swift course correction. Though improvements are being made, these people are let down because they don’t realize the sheer size of our the world’s complexity, and the gears of change take longer than 100 days to enact. But for those keeping score, here are the improvements that were made in Obama’s first 100 days, which has happened with unprecedented speed:

Obama has reversed restrictions on stem cell research, appointed an assistant to the president for science and technology policy, created a foreclosure prevention fund for homeowners, expanded loan programs for small businesses, extended and indexed the 2007 Alternative Minimum Tax patch, expanded eligibility for State Children’s Health Insurance Fund (SCHIP), expanded funding to train primary care providers and public health practitioners, directed military leaders to end war in Iraq, sent two additional brigades to Afghanistan, as promised gave a speech at a major Islamic forum in the first 100 days of his administration, granted Americans unrestricted rights to visit family and send money to Cuba, restored funding for the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (Byrne/JAG) program, released presidential records, now requires new hires to sign a form affirming their hiring was not due to political affiliation or contributions, pushed for enactment of Matthew Shepard Act, which expands hate crime law to include sexual orientation and other factors, created a White House Office on Urban Policy, supported increased funding for the NEA, funded a major expansion of AmeriCorps, worked to overturn Ledbetter vs. Goodyear, banned lobbyist gifts to executive employees, pledged to weatherize 1 million homes per year, invested in all types of alternative energy, enacted tax credit for consumers for plug-in hybrid cars, provided grants to encourage energy-efficient building codes, as promised appointed at least one Republican to the cabinet, and he has extended unemployment insurance benefits and temporarily suspended taxes on these benefits.

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Pictures of those minigun trucks in the Presidential Motorcade

A month or so ago, a video circulated around the internet titled, “What are the Black Trucks in the Presidential Motorcade? [Video]“. The claim was that one of the trucks had a 4,000 round-per-minute mini gun. I didn’t believe this since I had seen the motorcade so many times, and didn’t see any evidence of this; and of course proudly refuted it whenever I saw a blog mentioning it.

Today, Obama was across the street speaking to the Hispanic conference, so I was able to get a good vantage point. I’m sorry to admit that I think I’m mistaken. I took several pictures with my crappy camera phone, showing with these ports on top of them. These could very well be for another purpose, so I leave it up to you to decide if that’s actually what they are.

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The Innocence Project Saved Taxpayers Ten Million Dollars This Year

It’s only March, yet The Innocence Project has already saved American tax payers $10,440,000 this year.

The Innocence Project is a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.

This number was arrived at by taking the average cost of housing one inmate ($45,000) and multiplying it by the amount of people the Innocence Project has proven innocent (232). The housing cost comes from several factors; food, utilities, facilities, health care, recovery and reacclimation programs, and staffing and maintenance of the above.

The ten million dollar figure is not a one time savings, and the savings are compounded. every time a person is exonerated, another $45 thousand is saved, yearly. Even if the Innocence Project stopped operating today, over the next ten years it has already saved America over a hundred million dollars.

Getting a DNA test is a simple procedure which only costs a few thousand dollars. So the question arises, why doesn’t the government adapt this same policy as the Innocence Project? Thankfully, other people are asking this same question. A groundbreaking report released Feb. 18 by the National Academy of Sciences calls for the U.S. federal government to create a National Institute of Forensic Science to strengthen research, support and oversight of forensic science. The safeguards recommended in the report would significantly improve public safety and prevent wrongful convictions.

You can read more about the Innocence Project’s mission and actions here.

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Typo almost creates panic

This morning, a source close to Science magazine (anonymity preferred) contacted us to explain how a typo nearly caused a panic amongst the science community.

Science magazine is an academic journal published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is considered the world’s premiere scientific journal. Though their audience is large, nobody expected a typo to create so much panic.

“I got into work at 8:30 this morning,” our source told us. “I had a dozen emails from editors marked as high priority. They needed something fixed, fast.”

A typo had been published that used the word “plague” instead of “plaque.” The article discussed how plaque disrupts neural health in mice, but the wording made it sound as if mice were reacting globally to the formation of a new plague.

The online version of the magazine had published Thursday night, and by Friday morning, inboxes were full. “The sheer volume of concerned feed back was amazing,” they said.

The original summary read: “Astrocytes respond globally to plague formation,” which has since been fixed.

The article can be viewed here. The corrected version of the summary can be this week’s issue’s table of contents.

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Pictures of Fertalized Eggs Now a Sex Crime in North Dakota?

You see this image? That’s a fertilized human egg. The North Dakota House of Representatives passed a bill on Feb 19th 2009 which states that this picture is considered child pornography. The vote now goes to the North Dakota Senate for a vote. If passed, it means that if you post pictures of your ultrasound on Facebook, you run the risk of having to sign up for the sex offender registry.

This bill that passed by 51-41 this afternoon declared that a fertilized egg has all the rights of any person. Sponsored by Rep. Dan Ruby, R, this effectively outlaws abortion in North Dakota.

Outlawing abortions obviously this leads to unregulated abortions, since abortions take place regardless of legality. However, having back-ally abortions is the least of womens’ concern. If the North Dakota Senate passes it as well, North Dakota would be able to prosecute women who have miscarriages as being criminally negligent.

While Ruby has has sponsored other anti-abortion bills, it is unclear his motivation for this. While North Dekota is running record budget problems, it seems odd that he’d willingly force so many unwed teenagers into motherhood, where the state will be legally obligated to support them. Additionally, he certainly cannot be using any biblical justification, because the Bible is very clear to state that until a child is alive one month out of the mother it has no value at all. (Exodus 21:22-23, Leviticus 27:6, Numbers 3:15-16.) What’s more, God has abroved of abortion and has been known to induce an abortion (Numbers 5:21-21, 27-28).

The whole situation is a bit absurd. North Dakota has opened up a can of worms they really didn’t think through.

Update: Someone put up a good list of side effects of this law Here. Where our list is a bit sophomoric, this link has actual legal implications

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