I don’t watch the Faux News Network, so I was a bit surprised when Sen. McCain suggested that ACORN was committing voter fraud. Nicholas, as usual, has a link to the answer: check out the Voter-Fraud Fraud article online at The New Yorker.
Be on the lookout for voter disenfranchisement this election. Greg Palast has some suggestions in Steal Back Your Vote. (It’s a “donate to download” link, but you can donate any amount.)
We’re gonna have our first “political party” next weekend at the not-quite-finished house. We’ll be hosting a phone-banking party aimed at getting out the progressive vote for Senator Obama during the Texas primary/caucus. I figure we can get about 20 people in the house, allowing for room to work and talk on cellular phones. If any Sacramento readers are interested, please RSVP here so we don’t get too crowded.
Senator Obama has won all 10 of the primaries/caucuses since Super Tuesday, and although there are four states holding primaries on March 4, it’s really all about Texas. Senator Clinton’s campaign has been battered throughout February, and it seems like she’s betting the remainder of her campaign on this one state. If she doesn’t win Texas, it looks like she’ll have to throw in the towel.
So come on out next weekend and help us put Obama over the top for the Democratic nomination!
Apparently the Joint Chiefs of Staff object to this cartoon:
Perhaps they didn’t bother to read the name on the end of the bed, “U.S. ARMY”. Obviously this isn’t intended to represent a maimed veteran; rather, it’s a reflection on the current state of our armed forces.
The real “problem” with this particular cartoon is that it’s so damnably effective, much to the chagrin of the Joint Chiefs and the Bush administration. Recruiting is getting tougher, “stop-loss” is hitting its limit, and every day more people are realizing that Bush got us into this Iraq mess without a plan.
Nineteen of the 43 Democratic senators voted with Republicans to end debate on the nomination of Samual Alito to the Supreme Court. We, the people, will bear the brunt of their lack of spine for years, if not decades, as this radical member of the highest court in the United States subverts Congressional authority in favor of a “unitary executive“. (Our founding fathers simply called them “kings”.)
The wall of shame (by state):
I honestly expected no better from some of these people. Lieberman, the Republican in Democrat’s clothing, is obviously the first to come to mind. But Robert Byrd’s vote shocked me. Another of my heroes struck down before my eyes…
Is Rep. Dan Lungren tainted by the Abramoff scandal? Well, he’s taken $10,000 in bribescampaign contributions from DeLay’s ARMPAC, an organization for which Jack Abramoff was one of the chief fundraisers.
If I can dig up some other sources for these claims, I’ll be asking Congressman Lungren to return the money or donate it to charity.
While I was installing BitTorrent on my Mac, I read the Wikipedia entry for BT and learned that Democracy Now! is available via BT. In fact, they have a pretty nice “how-to” page for BT that covers the basics pretty well.
DN is providing relatively high-quality video of their hour-long daily news program, so these files are pretty big: approximately 400 MiB or about 2/3’s of a full CD-ROM. Between the much larger file size and the larger number of simultaneous downloaders, the performance of the Torrent was much better than my Omni download. I downloaded Friday’s DN! program that afternoon and had about 20 members in the swarm, whereas when I downloaded OmniOutliner I was directly connected to a seed since nobody else was downloading at that time.
I’ll have to try slurping up DN! on Monday morning when it’s fresh. Presumably there will be a larger swarm which should improve performance even further.
Update: 2006-01-02 05:59:29 I just downloaded this morning’s episode, 418 MiB in 110 minutes, or about 65 kiB/s. There were only a few more members of the swarm (22-24), but performance seemed quite a bit better.
Over on Call Me Fishmeal, Wil Shipley is linking to a speech on economics, democracy, media and the environment. It’s a broad topic, and the transcript of the speech is a relatively long read, but it’s well worth the effort. Wil is right: Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, who can disagree with this stuff? Who wants their children to have birth defects, to suffer asthma, to live on a moonscape?
There isn’t really much else to write on the issue other than, “Yeah, what he said!” So save your reading effort for the speech.
It’s been a while since I had something good to say about a Republican official, but California State Assemblyman Roger Niello earned a few points by introducing Assembly Bill 394 during the 2005-2006 session. According to a recent article in the Sacramento Bee, this law will make it easier for homeowners to strike discriminatory language from their CC&R’s.
Assemblyman Niello’s interest was caught by a January 2005 article in the Sacramento Bee. (I can’t find the original article on the Bee’s website, but the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reprinted the Bee article and still has it available online.)
(From the Bee article:) Gregg Fishman and his wife moved into Sacramento’s upscale Arden Park neighborhood in 2001, enchanted by the shady Modesto ash, lush parks, large lots and friendly atmosphere. They didn’t realize that, along with their 1950s-era California ranch-style home, they were buying a piece of America’s racist past. Tucked into their property records, in tiny type, is the “Racial Occupancy” clause: “No persons of any race other than White Caucasian race shall use or occupy any building or any lot except . . . by domestic servants of a different race domiciled with an owner or tenant . . .”
AB 394 was passed unanimously by both the California Senate and Assembly. It was signed into law by the Governor on 22 September 2005. (The full text of the Bill is available on the Official California Legislative Information website.)
When we moved into Arden Park earlier this year, I had noticed that we have a similar clause in our CC&R’s. There is another clause which allows for the CC&R’s to be revised or amended every decade, so I was planning on getting the discriminatory clause stricken when the CC&R’s were up for renewal in 2010. But the current situation is preferable because, a) it applies to the whole state, not just my neighborhood, and b) it frees up my time and energy for other causes!
Got a minute to waste and need a good laugh? Go to Google, enter the search phrase “terrorist sympathizer” and hit the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button! Continue reading ‘Looking for terrorist sympathizers? Google knows the answer…’
The Governator put his political life on the line in the lead-up to yesterday’s special election. Unfortunately for him, every one of his propositions was defeated. (Arnold was pushing Props. 74, 75, 76, and 77.)
There’s been much talk that the Governor veered hard to the conservative side in this election (mostly by liberals), and nearly as much talk about how the Guv is a centrist (mostly by conservatives). Consider that three initiatives (74, 75, & 76) are targeting public employees (traditionally Democratic), while Prop. 77 is politically neutral — I have to wonder how this stance could be interpreted as anything other than pro-Republican.
On the non-existant chance that the Governor wants my advice, I offer the following:
An aside: I was on an out-of-state phone call a few days ago, and the person on the other end asked why Californians are so informal that they refer to the Governor by his first name. I told her it was because nobody could spell “Schwarzenegger”
