Amtrak is the perfect example of how government fails.
Mike Lynch has a plan that makes too much sense for Congress to actually pay attention to.

Farrakhan is disappointed with Bush's plan.
Farrakhan is FOS (Full of Shit)
He exposes himself as a person full of rhetoric and extreme bias towards the Arab world.
He keeps using the stat that 500,000 Iraquis have dies due to sanctions. This false stat has been debunked by everyone but the most intellectually challenged.
He then gives justification for suicide bombings, because the Palestinians have no real weapons. He totally ignores the FACT that Syria and Lebanon are the biggest supporters of suicide bombers, and they both possess traditional militaries.
Is he saying that Bush is wrong for demanding democracy? What a joke.

Drugs and Depression
Fellow blogger DC Thornton mentions that pills have been a godsend for their personal dealings with depression.
I can only second that feeling. I fought the idea that drugs could actually help.
I dont drink, smoke (anything) and have never used an illegal drug.
Depression had almost destroyed everything in my life before i gave the pills a try. The difference was mind-blowing.
In my own stubborness, I decided I did not need any help from drugs any longer.
The impact was immediately apparent to everyone that knew me. I quickly corrected the situation.

Airlines, Security and Racial Profiling
I flew for the first time since 9-11 this past week. I flew from Chicago to Seattle through Denver.
I bought my ticket at the last minute and payed cash for it. I expected to be searched and looked at more closely.
I was pulled aside at every airport. This does not bother me.
What did bother me, was some of the other people I saw being pulled over for closer inspection.
Two middle aged white women, both with two children under 6 years old.
A young black woman with two very small children
This is stupid and wastes time.
To include race in profiling for terrorist is only common sense.
Due to my complexion and hair texture, I have been asked if I am of Indian, Hispanic and Arab descent.
So racial profiling would probably put me in most lineups. That does not bother me, it would make me feel a lot safer than wasting time on people that would never be a terrorist.

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM WITH RELIGION, ANYWAY? by ANDRE BISASOR
Should we object to "religion". The doctrine of "separation of church and state" has seemed to promote the idea, that we should object to religion every chance we get and that there is something inherently specious about the subject that lends itself to some kind of destructive influence on us all. Is this valid?
First of all, to deal with such issues intelligently, we must ask ourselves, " what is all this 'hoopla' about religion, anyway?. Why is there or has there been objections to religious issues?"

DEFINITION OF RELIGION
Let us think through this logically. What is the objection to "religion". The main objection is that it is unprovable. The basic definition of religion is a system of thought which requires belief in unprovable truths. Now because it is unprovable then, religion becomes fundamentally a matter of "faith". Assumably, matters of faith have no place in the workplace or in a classroom for that matter. So if matters of faith are inappropriate, then the question becomes " what is appropriate?". Most of us would say matters of fact, (e.g. things based on science or mathematics) that is things that can be proved true or untrue.
So the problem with religion is that it cannot be proven true or untrue and thus lends itself (in the worst of cases or extremes) to either mindless indoctrination or bitter endless arguments. This is the traditional reasoning behind the "objection to religion".

"MATHEMATICS AS RELIGION?"
Now if the presence of "unprovable truths" within a system of thought makes it a religion and also makes it objectionable, then consider the following:
Mathematics is the guarantor of precision and objectivity, the language of nature itself.
Yet, in 1931, Kurt Godel, an Austrian logician and mathematician proved a sweeping theorem that undermine the entire logical foundation of the subject. Godel's theorem springs from a constellation of paradoxes that surrround the subject of self-reference. For example, consider the statement " this statement is a lie." If the statement is true, then it is false, and if it is false then it is true.
a medieval formulation of the same conundrum is :
Socrates: "what Plato is about to say is false"
Plato: "Socrates has just spoken truly"

The great mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russel demonstrated that the existence of such paradoxes strikes at the very heart of logic, and undermines any straightforward attempt to construct mathematics rigorously on a logical foundation. John Barrow, scientific historian, has remarked that "if a religion is to be defined as a system of thought which requires belief in unprovable truths, then mathematics is the only religion that can prove it is a religion."
The key idea at the heart of Godel's theorem can be explained with the help of a little story.
In a faraway country, a group of mathematicians devised a machine that they believed could systematically determine infallibly the truth or falsity of every meaningful proposition. the system was called TOM. to test TOM'S abilities, all sorts of complicated logical and mathematical statements were presented to it, and after due time for processing, back came the answers: true, false, true, true...... It was not long before toms fame spread throughout the land. Many people came to visit the laboratory, and exercised greater and greater ingenuity in formulating ever more difficult problems in an attemptt o stump tom.. Nobody could. So confident grew the mathematicians of toms infallibility that they decided to offer a prize to anyone who could defeat toms analytical powers. but one day a traveler came from another country with an envelope and asked to challenge tom for the prize. inside the envelope was a piece of paper with a statement on it, intended for tom. the statement, called "S" simply read : "Tom cannot prove this statement to be true." S was given to Tom. Scarcely had a few seconds elapsed before tom began a sort of convulsion. after a half a minute, a technician came running down with news that Tom had been shut down due to technical problems. What happened? If Tom were to arrive at the conclusion that "S" is true, then "S"= "tom cannot prove this statement to be true" will have been falsified, because Tom will have just done it. But if "S" is falsified, "S" cannot be true. Thus if Tom answers "true" to S, Tom will have arrived at a false conclusion, contradicting its much-vaunted infallibility. Hence Tom cannot answer true. We have therefore concluded that "S", in fact, is true. But in arriving at this conclusion we have demonstrated that tom cannot arrive at this conclusion. This means we know something to be true that Tom can't demonstrate to be true. This is the essence of Godel's proof: that there will always exist certain true statements that cannot be proved to be true.
(also, just because something cannot be proved to be true does not necessarily mean that it is not true).
Furthermore, this indicates that once we are apart of the system that we are attempting to explain (e.g. if we try to explain the world around us, yet we are in the world or if we try to explain aspects of the universe, yet we are in the universe, etc), we ,like tom who was included in the system he was attempting to explain, will have to believe in unprovable truths, and there will and does exist for us, truths that are true but that we cannot prove to be true. The only way for anyone of us to escape this limitation, is to escape the context that we live in, which is an impossibility other than through death and what of our ability to explain or believe anything, then?.
The limitations exposed by Godel's theorem concerns the axiomatic method of logical proof itself and is not a property of the statements one is trying to prove or disprove. One can always make the truth of a statement that is unprovable in given axiom itself an axiom in some extended system. but then there will be other statements unprovable in this enlarged system.

CAN WE REALLY OBJECT TO RELIGION? AND IF SO ON WHAT GROUNDS?
This shows that in every system of thought, at the very core is an axiom which is unprovable but yet is considered "self-evident". Even in the most scientific of disciplines such as mathematics, the reigning embodiment of logic and reason (the supposed anthithesis of what some call "religion"), there exists at the very beginning at the very core, unprovable truths that one must have "faith in" or "believe in".
From a metaphysical standpoint, what this means is that, until we become omniscient, there will be some things we have to take at face value as a self-evident axiom or a "necessary truth", as a starting point for knowing anything else or for the basis of our systems of thought.
If mathematics itself, contains belief in unprovable truths, then what has happened to our disdain of religion. It has become a inconsistent position at best and a hypocritical position at worst.
The above demonstrates that we cannot object to religion on the basis of its requirement of belief in unprovable truths. If we do so, we must object to every subject that requires belief in unprovable truths, including mathematics, and all other disciplines that has at its core mathematics and logic. If we do that, then we are left with nothing to discuss. Why would we have to object to all others cases involving belief in unprovable truths? Because of a principle in argumentation and formal logic called " the principle of Similar Cases". This principle holds that our positions must be consistent otherwise all argument would grind to a sudden halt. Consistency demands that you have a reason not only for making a claim, but also for making distinctions in similar cases. If you make a distinction in how you treat similar cases then you must provide a rationale in the form of a relevant difference, otherwise your position would become inconsistent and would thus reveal bias and thus would be intellectually unacceptable .

THE EXAMPLE OF ANALYTICAL GEOMETRY
E.g. Analytical geometry has as its self-evident axiom that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. However Einstein has shown via his space-time curvature of space theory that all ines in the universe are curved as a result of the concentration of mass and its consequent effect of gravity (this may be a bit too heavy for those without a science background--however i assure you that as extraordinary as it may seem, most of our recent breathroughs in space technology have been based on Einstein's theoretical and mathematical constructs). In effect, this means that there is no such thing as a straight line. Well, do you believe in analytical geometry (pythagoras theorem etc) then you have faith in the existence of a straight line which is contradicted by modern mathematics and modern physics.

THE EXAMPLE OF THE SCIENCE OF BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION
Do you suscribe to the science of evolution? Then you must have as a starting point or self-evident axiom the belief in what is called "the fortuitous concurrence of atoms" which is the accidental, haphazard, arbitrary collision of atoms randomly which somehow connected in just the right way to produce organic life. This organic life (a unicellular organism) against all odds somehow adapted and mutated under extreme conditions to transform into a mulit-cellular organism which transformed eventually into a fish, then that fish somehow transformed eventually into a monkey, then that monkey eventually transformed into humans.
As matter of science, this has more articles of faith that christianity or islam put together! Inotherwords, it requires just as much or even more faith to believe in the above than it does to believe in "the existence of a Supreme Being or Creator who created the universe". But then even the "fortuitous concurrence of atoms" is an inadequate axiom to start with, because one could asked where did the atoms come from or who/what created them. Again, what purports to be science here (evolution science) is actually religion (a system of thought that requires belief in unprovable truths).

THE EXAMPLE OF ATHEISM
Take for example, Atheism. Atheism espouses that there is no Supreme Being or Creator i.e. God for a number of reasons. But then when an atheist intellectual is asked "if there is no Creator, then how did the universe come into existence?", he inevitably will answer that either the universe either created itself or that the universe always existed. Well can the atheist prove that?. Obviously not. It becomes the "self-evident axiom" or the unprovable truth necessary for this system of thought. So again here, Atheism, which claims to be a rational system of thought, is actually at its very heart a religious system. Inotherwords, the Atheist has his religion of non-religion or his theology of non-theology.

CONCLUSION
I could go on to show that almost every respected intellectual discipline or system of thought has as its genesis or as its absolute foundation a belief in an unprovable truth that one has to accept as a self-evident axiom. So then the question becomes, whose religion will we discuss, yours or mine!
I urge us all to become well-read and informed about the world around us for when we reject others and their ideas, we may be rejecting ourselves, if we are not careful and we may find that we will be embarrassed as leaders if we do not become intellectually sophisticated.

More on Nixons liberal policies

The Voting Rights Act of 1970 was a tip of the iceberg. The catalog of programs that Nixon initiated or accepted is little known to most Americans, but includes the "war on cancer," the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Water Pollution Control Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Office of Consumer Affairs, Amtrak and "revenue sharing" with local governments.
He approved hiring goals for minorities and women and promoted set-asides for minority-owned businesses, making him, as the civil rights leader James Farmer put it, the "strongest president on affirmative action - up to that point."
Nixon pumped federal dollars into historically black colleges, signed Title IX legislation to expand women's access to higher education, and changed the direction of Native American policy to enhance self-determination for tribes. Most surprising, 15 years after the Supreme Court's Brown vs. Board of Education decision, it was the Nixon administration, during 1969 and 1970, that finally desegregated public schools in the South.

Why Hillary Clinton will run for president
I am not the only one who thinks she will run

The great tragedy of 1992
What if President George H.W. Bush was re-elected in 1992?
This article presents some interesting, and probable ideas about how the country would be a much better place.

Liberia: From oasis of freedom to ongoing civil war
Great article about the history of Liberia and its oppressive founders. It shows that oppression is a human condition, not based on race. The former slaves created a slave society in Africa. Freedom, is the exception and not the rule.

Former hostage: My husband 'died well'
I would rather die at the hands of Americans trying to save me, than at the hands of the enemy.
Citizens need to know that their government will not leave them.

Charity
I presently work for a non-profit organization, and it has opened my eyes to how little impact the right has on non-profits. The libertarian/conservatives cannot just blindly give money to charity. They must demand results, and demand free-market principles.
Many organizations don't just need money, they need expert advice. The non-profit sector is at least 10 years behind the corporate sector regarding technology.
Imagine helping non-profits become self-sustaining and telling the government "no thanks" for their funding. Imagine these non-profits being able to objectively show the progress made by clients. The progress will be a life without government or organizational dependency.
The leftist implement their vision through non-profit funding, while the right just waits. Proactive action is needed that reaches the poor with real solutions. They are begging for it and their dignity demands it.
Local organizations are the key to transforming our politics. Resources should be directed at cities where the impact could be felt and copied by others.