Hey all. I'm in the computer lab right now killing time between classes. I just read an article about policy subsystems and their role in the formation of some of the most important policies in the country and noone really pays attention to them. It was a really good article. I had to read it for my Political and Organizational Leadership class. It has been a really good class so far. It is just the type of stuff I want to study - how the government actually functions etc. I also have to do another reading for this class today from the book "Who's Running America: The Bush Restoration" by David Rusk . I highly reccomend reading this book if you even want to know who has the REAL power in America. It is actually the latest in a series of books that goes back to the Carter Administration. With each presidential administration, Rusk writes a new book about who the elites in society are, from business, to government, to special interest, to nonprofits etc. He looks at where they come from, how they got there etc. It is really interesting to see who controls the power and how they got to control it. He takes a fairly positive approach in his research and looks at who has the power by breaking each grouping (government, business) by the most powerful actors in each - the department heads, CEOs, CFOs and they shows where they came from. He does not make value judgements as to whether it is good that they all come from the same few schools etc, he lets you draw your own conclusions. I cannot strees how important it is to know who these people are. They are the ones that control America and making the decisions that affect everyone. But anyway, I already read the chapter, I just have to go to the book store and look over it again as I have a quiz on it but I still don't have the book and neither does the library.

[inlink]terry,309[/inlink]

THough I think this would be a great idea ( I am a huge supporter of public transportation), isn't that sort of what they did on Main Street and that killed business. I agree, it would be great and such an improvement if it worked but I have my doubts. We don't need another sucking sound that is most of Main

I regards to [inlink]ajay,116[/inlink], I would like to a bit more optimistic that all Republicans aren't for corporations. I personally don't believe what I do for the corporations' bidding, but at the same time I cannot speak for every Republican, only myself. And regarding the differences between the OMB and GAO. I am well aware of the differences because we had to explain them everytime the GAO put something out that didn't agree with what we said. I understand why you would believe the GAO over the OMB because the OMB is part of the Executive Office of the President meaning his appointees control what is said by the OMB, whereas the GAO is run by congress and therefor a bit more bipartisan. In fairness to the OMB though, they do analize things in a different manner,considering different factors, than the GAO. It is not always just partisan BS why they come out differently. Their numbers come out differently because they don't always consider the same numbers (whether or not it is beneficial to who is running them). Again this is my personal opinion, not OMB's.

On to other things for those who read this and could give a rats ass about politics. I had my first paper of the year due yesterday, and in typical fashion, I did not do it until the last second when I woke up at 4:30am to start it. I can only do papers if I have that pressure on me. In the end it worked out well and I got it done. If anyone wants to know my opinion on the findings of the Continuity of Government COmmission with regards to their reccommendations for Congress, let me know.

I had a nice little weekend even though it was pretty unproductive. I spent Saturday hanging out with my friend Jess. We chatted it up for 7 hours straight, just chatting it up about life etc. It was craziness though, 7 hours with no outside entertainment, food, etc. Just talking. It was good though. I enjoyed talking to her and some of her observations about pink elephants.

On sunday I had my first GA meeting. The GA is our student government, like student council in high school. I was appointed to it at the end of last year. It is kind of a crazy organization that has a bunch of students who act like they are going to be Senators some day and treat the GA as if it is the Senate. SOme take themselves too seriously, but it has gotten better. I am looking forward to working in it.

Sunday night, Siv, Vaani, and Elena all went out to a seafood place called Joe's Crabshack. It was a good time. I got the popcorn shrimp. It was fun just hangin out with them.

In my Political and Organizational leadership class, we watched a BBC documentary on what happened minute by minute during the Sept 11th attacks. And how the government responded and what was going on etc. It was really informative to look at it like that and see when and how each decision was made. It was a bit intense though due to the proximity to the anniversary and I hadn't seen some of that footage in so long. It was really good but it got to me.

On that happy note, I should try to make this a productive day. I hope all is well with everyone. Talk to you later

Happy Birthday (e:Diana)!!! I hope you have a great day, and enjoy tasting alcohol for the first time.

[inlink]ajay,115[/inlink]

By Reagan Small Government wing, I mean exactly that. Unfortunately, as you point out - the Reagan Small Government wing isn't exactly for small government. What I mean by this babbling is that the Republican party is now run by social conservatives who are opposed, on principle alone, to government social programs, and support, on principle alone, increasing spending on the military. If I still am not making sense/ you disagree with me, let me know and I will try to be more clear.

As a point of information in response to "The Whitehouse's attempts to fudge the numbers are just plain pathetic," I worked at the Office of Management and Budget's Communications Office this summer, whose responsibility it is to explain the administration's position on the budget deficit. So I was one of the pathetic ones. :-p Just to cover my ass, none of the views that I express and have expressed in my journals are in any way related to my former position or the official position of OMB.

[inlink]rachel,119[/inlink]

In Response to the Garrison Keillor Commentary.
He does bring up some good points in how the Republican Party has moved away from the moderation of the 1960s. The Progressive wing in the Republican Party has greatly diminished, and the moderates are currently on the path to slowly go the way of the dinosaur. One has to look no further than our own backyard to seen this. It is speculated that Rep. Quinn resigned from office because he didn't care for a lot of the strong arm tactics that the House leadership has undertaken. A signal that the Republican House leaders and Quinn were not on good terms can be seen in the fact that when he announced his resignation, he did not tell the House leadership anything untiul he called them 5 minutes before the press conference. This was a big fuck you to the House Republican leadership and caught them with their pants down. To show how unhappy with the way Quinn handled it, it is reported that calls were made to several interest groups that Quinn had been talking to about a job after he was out of office, and the groups were told that if they hired Quinn, their relationship with the COngressional leadership would become quite rocky.

The Reagan small government wing of the Republicans has squashed most of the East Coast Republicans. And he does make some good points about that.

My problem with this article is in its some of his hypocracies, exagerations and misrepresentations. One of the most glaring examples is the fact that he portrays Republicans as all a bunch of crazies (Reread the third paragraph if you doubt this statement), but he then criticizes the Republicans for portraying Democrats as "embittered academics, dessicated Unitarians, whacked-out hippies and cummunards, people who talk to telephone poles, the party of Deadheads." He is doing the same thing he is criticizing the Republicans for. I am not saying you can't call people names or exaggerate, nor am I saying that you can't criticize people for calling people names and exaggerating. I am saying that you can't call people names and exaggerate and then go on and criticize them for doing the same thing.

There are good and bad republicans and democrats, who act honorably or dishonorably. Though he has called attenion to some of the dishonorable things about the Republican party, he has done it in a dishonorable way. Two wrongs don't make a right and in wrting this article he only furthers this progression of rhetoric and attack in politics that he so despises in the Republican party.

And for the record, I am a Nixon Republican (I read his 1,000+ page memoir RN, thought it was great and highly reccommend it). Nixon once spoke of his philosophy on government size as being that his goal is not to make government smaller, but leaner. I have no problem with the government providing social programs or any programs for that matter. I just want those programs to be effective and actually do the job they are supposed to. I would go so far to say that I am not opposed to socialized medicine on principle. Healthcare is a huge problem in America and if the government can do the best job at providing it then they should. I am just concerned with the government's competence at handling things.

A great quote I came across in the CAGW blog

"If you're listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you're a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we're morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal."

-Alice Cooper

Make up your own mind people. Don't be a sheep to any party or rock star, whether it is the Republicans or Democrats, Ted Nugent or Dave.

On to other Rock the Vote News, I did find amusing the fact that the Kerry daughters and the Bush daughters were both booed at the MTV VMAs. MTV's rock the vote coverage is so moronic. If people aren't motivated enough to find out real background on the candidates and choose to rely on MTV's hackneyed coverage, maybe they should not be voting.

P.S. I think it is heresy for a polisci major to say that oh well

[inlink]emilyjane,3[/inlink]

try idealist.org. www.idealist.org It is all nonprofits- jobs internships etc.

This weekend has been a really nice one. Just hanging out and being lazy. The only problem is that I will have to pay the piper soon enough as I have a ton of crap due tomorrow. The favorite thing I have to do tomorrow is return all the books I bought from the bookstore. It is the last day to return them. The only reason I got them was so I could do my hw while I waited for the same books that I ordered online to come. I think ti is obserd that you have to buy books for your class. All classes should be required to have all the books that are nexxessary for the class on Reserve in the library so people who aren't made of money can still access them. People should still buy books if tehy want to, but if you can't afford a $200 econ book because you don't have money your access to an education shouldn't be punished. Plus the books stores run such a racket and obsurdly overcharge for books that aren't in stock when you need them and they won't buy them back when you don't argggg.

That is my rant but all and all I am pretty content right now. It is senior orgy week all this week at my school, which basically means that there is an event for seniors each night. Last night we went to a bar called Front Page. Its walls are covered with the front pages of newspapers from famous events. It was neat but I saw all of these people that I sort of new from the classes I took as a freshman but I haven't spoken to them since. It is funny to see people that you sort of know ridiculously drunk and acting like morons. Oh the amusements of sobriety. Tonight they are showing the movie Mean Girls on a screen in the quad. I am going to go. We'll see how much I watch. I am meeting up with someone to work on a project we have been doing for a while now. NOthing too exciting.

The nipple is still pretty happy. Maureen - if you want to post the pics, I would really like to see them. If you don't feel like lowering the resolution we can IM or something. That is all for now. Have a good night y'all

THe first week of school has been going well so far. I have been really busy lately, but very little of it has to do with my actual classes. At least I have been doing a decent job in keeping on top of things and being productive. Hopefully that will continue. On a side note, I hate the fucking shuttle service to my apartment - it is unreliable and sucks. I am such a supporter of public transport but it is crap like shuttles leaving 5 minutes before they are scheduled to that make me want to give up on it. In fairness to public transportation, this is run by a private company contracted out by my school for the apartment building. So it is not truly public, but you get my drift. I do still have much love for normal DC public transport. They are generally pretty reliable and on time and that is all I ask.