Time to say goodbye!:(

Hey Guys!
Now it`s over - our experiment week . Being a blogger for one week , that sounded really new and exciting when I began my "work " a week ago. As I have told you , I have never ever blogged before. Now I can look back on this experience and have to say that it was really cool. Honestly!!
I didn`t think that it would take so much time writing a good blog , cause you need time to reflect the topic you`re writing about. Good links , funny videos and nice images were also expected to be part of our blog and so really one was spoilt for choice, because there was so much great stuff in the internet!
These nice comments made me feel really good:) letting me know that I `m doing my job well, that was a great feeling , knowing that people read my stuff and receive so much positive feedback from them.
I really want to thank everybody for this great team work!! Thank you guys , it was a really cool time with you! Still I want to say a special thank you to Marian , my best blogpartner ever:) you were such a help when I didn`t know how to manage all this technical stuff especially and of course to the person who has made this whole thing just possible. It`s our lecturer Svetlana! Your course was really different from all the other ( sometimes boring) courses. You`ve had so much motivation that it literally sprung over to all of us and made us really enjoy the 3 months! A student from my other course has already asked me if you Svetlana , will continue doing this course next semster, because he was really fascinated by this! So please offer your courses just for all those who can`t imagine what fun it is really about blogging , internet and Obama:)and who need to experince this! I really recommend it to all of you guys!

Have a nice day!
Bye!!!
yours I. F. :)

Goodbye

Hey!

This is my last post during our blogging-project. I think it was a great experience, it was fun to blog at our own webpage about a very famous blog. I was able to inform myself about American political news and learned some new issues about the American way of politic. The blog “Crooks and Liars” is great; on the one hand it is informative, on the other hand it is also fun to read (and first of all to watch the videos). I also liked it because it is highly critical about all topics; they try to investigate behind the scenes. I will definitely continue reading this blog!
Sometimes it was difficult to find a plain article at Crooks and Liars; a lot of the political news are difficult to understand. Sometimes I did not have enough insight in some American topics to understand all articles completely.
For now I will stop blogging; you need some time each day to inform yourself and to write your own articles. At the moment I do not have enough time to keep on blogging constantly. Maybe I will start my own blog in the future.

Thanks for reading our blog!

Have a great day! Goodbye!

M.P.

Fundraising - with all available means

Hey Guys!

Today I write about the article “GOP Sends Out Fundraising Letter That Looks Exactly Like Census Form“, which was published By Nicole Belle on Tuesday Jan 26, 2010.

It is interesting how the Republican Party tries to get money for the gubernatorial elections 2010: they send letters which appear to be an official census form and ask for money at the same time. Just watch this short video and you will see what this is all about. Now the question is: Can this be legal?

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On the one hand I think this seems very funny – who is able to take questions like "Do you think the record trillion dollar federal deficit the Democrats are creating with their out-of-control spending is going to have disastrous consequences for our nation?" serious? For me it seems just like a bad joke… . But on the other hand it is a highly discussed topic; how far are parties allowed to go for fundraising? It seems, that for the Republican Party all available means are all right. They try to cheat the people and make them belief that this letter is an official document:

The letter was sent in plain white envelopes marked "Do Not Destroy, Official Document." Labeled "2010 Congressional District Census," the letter uses a capital "C," the same as the Census Bureau. It also includes a "Census Tracking Code."

The problem is that participation in the government census is required by law – people do not know whether they are required to answer this strange letter or not. Mainly old people do not know how to react. They do not want to support the Republican Party, but they want to act according to law. Nearly all of the people who commented at “Crooks and Liars” know that this was some kind of “joke, but they are worried that such occurrences could become the rule. Here is one example-comment:

“Mis-leading mail comes in bundles to my 76 year old mother. Many with the same scamming tactics threatening her if she doesn't reply. Here is the GOP engaging in these same tactics. And our government refuses to do anything about it. freedom of speech is now freedom to deceive.”

I think it is always important to see from which point of view something is called legal or illegal. In America every party needs money for successful election campaigns (if you want to inform yourself about how much money was raised in the last years, follow this link ;) ). The more money, the better the campaign. Also Obama was blamed for using illegal fundraising methods during his campaign 2008. From the Republican perspective the methods of the Democrats are wrong and illegal – and from the Democratic perspective the Republican methods are wrong and illegal. It is always a thin line between what is right and what is wrong.

Review on the hard times at Guantanomao Bay

Hey Folks!

Suzanna Ito, from Crooks and Liars , wrote an article on Monday 25th January 2010, which is supposed to remind the bloggers of the closure of Guantanamo Bay.It`s already one year ago that Obama issued three executive orders to close Guantanamo Bay.She presents 4 videos starring 4 detainees , who were held for years at the Guantanamo Bay and were eventually released without any apologies or any charge.
One voice came from Omar Deghayes. For six years he was detained at Guantanamo Bay and finally got even blind on his right eye after a prison guard jabbed him in the face with his fingers.
His story sounds really cruel , especially the methods of torture he tells in this video.
Omar who was born in Lybia, explains that he felt like being in a Burger King fridge , when the Air Conditioner was on the whole day and night. He and other detainees were kept under humiliating conditions.Light was on when you wanted really nothing more but just to sleep. You had virtually no rest at all.
Detaining prisoner without any trial is just not fair. That is a huge problem-a lot of other prisoners are just inncocent and sitting in the most cruel prison for just nothing.
America shouldn`t praise itself with such prison and the conditions under which the prisoners are held there. It`s nothing they should be proud of.

But just watch the video and form your own opinion.
http://crooksandliars.com/suzanne-ito/close-guant-namo-close-it-right-way

By the way there is also a British docudrama: "The Road to Guantanomo" about the incarceration of three British detainees at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base , Cuba, which was premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in Berlin on 14 February, 2006

I.F.

Today I like to comment on the article Looks Like They're Getting Ready to Dump Adult Coverage For Pre-Existing Conditions, which was published on Sunday (Jan 24) by Susie Madrak at Crooks and Liars. The topic of this post is the health care reform by Barack Obama. I think this is a very important and interesting subject of the current politics in America. If you want to inform yourself about all promises made by Obama and about his plans of the health care reform you can have a look here; I think this is a great summary, made by The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation , which is a non-profit, private operating foundation and focuses their research on the major health care issues

In my article I will first talk about this video published on youtube (and used by Crooks and Liars), and after this about the issue, that the government of America seems to suggest that much of President Obama's promise to ban pre-existing conditions is now being jettisoned.

I think this is a great video, which shows one of the main problems of the American health care system; people do not know anything about it! All of them seem to know that there is something like a health care system, but a lot of them do not understand or do not want to know what this is all about. Most of the people find the system very complicated and confusing – I think they try to get information, but no one is able to review the whole reform. So the main problem is the complexity of the health care system. This is a nice quote (source) which shows the whole mess of the reform:

“What's really in Obama's health care reform bill? Almost no one knows, and here's why: It's 1,017 pages long and written in an alien form of bureaucratic English that can barely be decoded by earthlings.”

The people in the video seem to be uninterested in politics and uninformed about the system of health care – but I think that it is nearly impossible to get a complete overview.

I also think it is kind of frightening, that insurers want to know EVERYTHING about you. They dig through your personal medical history to decide if you qualify yourself for health care. Most of the people think that they are healthy and that they would have no problem to get health insurance – but again they do not know enough about this system. People who seem to be completely healthy do not get an insurance because of very ridiculous reasons. I think this is crazy, in my opinion it should be a human right to get the best help possible if you are seriously sick…

Another problem is, that insurers can make up their own criteria to decide whether you get an insurance or not. Policemen ore firefighter may not get insurance because of their dangerous job - but this people risk their life to save other people. On the one hand society really needs such persons, on the other hand they do not care about them. I think that is really weird, too.

Obamas promise was to change the health care system, he wanted to help all the people, no matter if they are rich or poor. He also wanted to make sure that no one can be banned from insurance because of pre-existing conditions. Nowadays it seems, that he will not be able to make this plans true; here is the quote from Crooks and Liars:

“Plouffe wrote in the op ed, which was certainly cleared with the White House, if not written by them:

Parents won't have to worry their children will be denied

coverage just because they have a preexisting condition.

Their children? The original promise - even the bad Senate bill - protects everyone, of any age, from being denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions. Now it's just children?“

If this is the truth Obama will lose a lot of his credibility. In my opinion he has to keep his promise, otherwise a lot of voters will turn away from him. With Obama they voted for the change, but if there is no change they can not belief in him anymore.

M.P.

"So you walk me down the aisle?" or the old-fashioned view of a marriage

This is the Obama family: Stanley Ann Dunham with her husband Barack Obama Sr.
A " successful" example of an interracial marriage

Hey Guys!
Today I have come across a video or better said cartoon clip, which was published on Friday 22nd 2010 by Mark Fiore .It is a cartoon about the never-ending issues gay marriages : top or flop , or " gay or straight".
Mark Fiore criticizes literally speaking the conservative bahaviour or attitude of the Conservatives concerning same sex-marriage , which is also known as gay marriage. In a really funny way this cartoon provokes the Republicans by showing them their own "old-fashioned" attitude towards these issues. The part where the "cartoon host" talks about a conservative Republican lawyer who helped to install G. W. Bush in the White House , is the best example for this. As everyone knows: G.W.Bush as a member of the Republican party has always been against gay marriages. hevertheless this cartoon refers to this mentioned Republican lawyer who is fighting for marriage that is gay!
Fiore also drops a hint at the interracial marriage. This couple, showing a black woman and a white man , who are straight but can´t marry because they are of different races!
It has been only fully legal in all US states since the 1967 Supreme Court decision! It´s unbelievable how long it took the government to make such marriages legal! There were really laws banning interracial marriage and sex, so-called anti-miscegenation laws. Alabama was the first state to prohibit Blacks from marrying Whites in 1882, later other races like Native Americans , Asians etc. were not allowed to marry Whites! That`incredible isn`t it? I mean it was only 40 years ago that the United States Supreme Court ruled in Loving v. Virginia that anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional.
I have found a video showing John McCain at the Ellen Degeneres show. He firmly opposes to same sex-marriage and speaks of a disagreement between him and Ellen , who admitted being a lesbian. Ellen`s reaction is just great. But just watch it, it´s really fun!

I.F.

About Crooks and Liars

Heyho!

Nice to see you back on our blog! Today I like to present the blog “Crooks and Liars” and introduce the main bloggers from this webpage to you.

“Crooks and Liars” is an American liberal blog which appeared for the first time on the Internet in 2004. It was one of the first political blogs which used audio interviews and videos (for example material from programs such as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, Hardball with Chris Matthews, The O'Reilly Factor with Bill O'Reilly, and Countdown with Keith Olbermann). ”Crooks and Liars” is also famous for interviews with leading political and entertainment figures, as well as breaking original news stories. But not only politics, other current events and music are also topics of this webpage. The concepts of the blog-entries are mostly the same; first there is a (not always) short video and underneath a comment which deals with the topic of the video. There are 10 to 20 new blog-entries every day, published by different authors. They receive always a lot of comments – sometimes up to 400 for just one blog entry! On “technorati.com” the blog is ranked on position 34. of all political blogs and on position 90. of all registered web-blogs.

The blog received different awards ("Best Video Blog" in 2006, and "Best Weblog About Politics" in 2008). Last year “Crooks and Liars” was listed in the Time Magazine as one of the “25 Best Blogs of 2009”.

It was founded by John Amato, who is a professional sax and flutist who has played with or recorded for The Goo Goo Dolls, Ringo Starr, Duran Duran, The Knack, Eddie Money, John Taylor, Matt Sorum and Duff McKagen of Velvet Revolver, Ronnie Montrose, Glen Hughes of Deep Purple and Elliot Easton of The Cars. Amato has been referred to as "The Vlogfather", in reference to his being one of the first to use video in political blogging. In one interview he explained, that he wanted to create something new on the web – so he connected videos with blogs and “Crooks and Liars” was born. Nowadays the blog was able to attain cult status and you find different online-shops on the web to buy merchandise.

But Amato is not the only author, other frequent contributors are for example David Neiwert and Frances Langum. Neiwert is a freelance journalist based in Seattle. He won the National Press Club Award for “Distinguished Online Journalism” in 2000. Neiwert is the managing editor of "Crooks and Liars", but he also has his own blog.

Frances Langum is 46 years old and a “full-time-blogger“; she writes for a lot of different blogs like “Crooks and Liars” and “The Aristocrats”. Her personal blog is called “Blue Gal”. Other contributors are Nicole Belle, Logan Murphy, Mike Finnigan, SilentPatriot, Susie Madrak, Nonny Mouse, and Howie Klein.

At the end I like to show an interesting link to you – a case study to Crooks and Liars. I don’t know much about this technical stuff, but I think for some people it could be fascinating to read ;).

That´s it for today! Have a nice day and keep on reading our blog ;).

M.P.