spacebawl (the blog)

Better Late Than Never

2008-04-17T09:38:00.003-04:00

Mbeki's government calls on Mugabe to release election results.

And I'm sure that the nationalists who got in such a huff over Mugabe's brutal land reform are following all this closely. After all, otherwise it would suggest that they only care about brutality when it's being done to whites.

That aside, I'm glad Mbeki got with the program. I just wonder why the hell it took him so long to call on the tyrant Mugabe to, you know, let the election continue.

Red China

2008-04-15T12:34:00.001-04:00

They really are just like us!

NO on Amendment 2!

2008-04-05T14:57:00.003-04:00

So another zOMG!!11!teh gayz r evul1!!111! amendment will be on Florida's ballot in the fall. It sure would be nice if these loons put as much effort into supporting some of Florida's less important issues, like the shitty education system, crime, destruction of the environment, beach erosion, traffic, lack of funding for basic services, and so on. But if we defeat TEH GAYZ then all those other problems will magically resolve, I guess.

Personally, I think all marriage should be outlawed, because it's stupid. But I respect the right of other people to fuck up their lives if they want, as long as they leave me out of it. Heh.

Please support the SayNo2 campaign if you can, and tell every Floridian you know to vote NO on Amendment 2.

FL-24: Clint Curtis' Statement on Proposed NASA Launch Site and Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge

2008-04-04T16:24:00.001-04:00

[I'm posting this statement on behalf of Clint Curtis, Democratic candidate for the FL-24 district. The photos in this diary were taken by me on a kayaking excursion to Merritt Island last summer.]

Dear Friends,

As many of you know, one of my core issues is the preservation and empowerment of NASA, which I believe is not only healthy for Florida but the nation and the world. NASA represents everything that's great about the US - the spirit of discovery, the can-do, against-all-odds spirit that put us on the moon and beyond. But I am also concerned with protecting and preserving the incredible beauty of the great state of Florida.

I recently attended the NASA public hearings concerning the new Commercial Vertical Launch Complex proposal for Kennedy Space Center (KSC.) First and foremost, I want to point out that NASA is not the enemy here. NASA should be commended for its efforts to gain public input and also for its long record of working with community leaders and environmental interests over the years. That relationship has made Florida’s Space Coast what it is today: a truly beautiful place to live and one that adds greatly to our quality of life.

The Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and the Canaveral National Seashore (Playalinda Beach) not only provide a significant source of revenue to the community with their ability to attract tourists, they are both premier natural preserves with unparalleled natural beauty. The Wildlife Refuge should not be placed in the debatable plan for apportioned commercial development but should remain intact in its natural state for the enjoyment of successive generations.

Many at the public hearings were community leaders, business owners, and environmentalists who voiced opposition to the site #2 proposal and I want to echo that sentiment. Possible alternatives for the site #2 proposal might be converting abandoned Air Force launch sites or the refurbishing of unused launch sites at KSC. It just makes better sense to use existing facilities and infrastructure, such as roads and rail access, as well as the consideration of costs for this proposed project.

The resolution process for this complex issue should be one where all parties - governmental, environmental, and private - are involved in a collaborative effort to find a solution that fits the needs of all. The resolution of this issue is far too important to those involved to be handled in a routine, arbitrary political manner. With the possible loss of nearly 3,000 jobs due to the shuttle conversion, timing of this proposed project and its outcome is extremely important.

I would also like to point out that this is an issue which, I feel, demands the involvement of our elected congressional leaders. I did not see either Congressmen Dave Weldon or Tom Feeney, nor any of their staffers, at this meeting. One should ask them why they were not there. How can this issue not be important enough to merit their time?

Once I am elected to the House of Representatives, I will make issues of this nature a priority to ensure that these decisions are made with the interest of Florida’s Space Coast in mind, not just those in Washington DC.

Clint Curtis

Clint Curtis for Congress
Clint's blog
Clint's ActBlue page
FL-24 2008 Race Tracker Wiki

FL-24 candidate Clint Curtis endorses Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq

2008-04-04T16:20:00.001-04:00

Last week, a full-bore effort commenced in the Florida blogosphere to introduce Democratic politicians and candidates to the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq. This comprehensive plan was spearheaded by Darcy Burner, Democratic candidate for Washington State's 8th District, and has gained national praise and attention, as well as a large number of additional endorsees.

I'm very pleased to announce that Clint Curtis, Democratic candidate for FL-24, is the first in the district to add his name as an endorsee. Even better, he did it before the Florida bloggers began their campaign! I've known Clint since 2006 when he first challenged Tom Feeney for the FL-24 seat and have supported him ever since. In addition, I've done a little bit of volunteer work for his campaign, primarily writing and commenting about him on blogs and telling everyone I meet why I think he's the best candidate for this seat. A few weeks ago, I emailed Clint about the Responsible Plan and asked him to carefully review it and consider an endorsement. He responded only a few days later to express his support.

Clint is extremely busy with fundraising, attending meetings of local Democratic clubs (including mine, the Five Cities Democratic Club), attending hearings on issues of great importance to the district (such as NASA's proposed new launch pad), and numerous other campaign-related activities. Yet, he's always been extremely quick to respond to my questions and suggestions. He's very much the type of person I'd want to represent me and all the residents of FL-24.

Kudos to Clint for his smart decision! If you are able, please consider a contribution to his campaign.

Clint Curtis for Congress
Clint's blog
Clint's ActBlue page
FL-24 Race Tracker Wiki

This post approved by ClintP, unofficial campaign mascot.

On the Wisdom of Death Squads

2008-03-07T22:30:00.000-05:00

In light of our failure in Iraq, many have come to question whether war as traditionally waged can be used to combat terror.

For the first few years of our presence, and particularly after it became clear that the war was not an accident but a matter of deliberately-applied military theory, the main question asked was one of "Did we send enough troops?" Surely our presence was disputed, and we needed a force large enough to suppress the country, so that stability could result and our will could be exercised. To this day, that question stays in my mind, and I say that as someone who rejected the strategy from the beginning.

Rumsfeld's war was supposed to be nimble and swift. As conquest shifted to occupation, however, it turned out to be nothing of the sort. Iraq became a leghold trap.

Naturally, another question emerged as the war dragged on. Perhaps Rumsfeld's error had not been recklessness, but clumsiness. Perhaps it wasn't a matter of not sending enough troops, but of sending too many. This thought found good company with another popular sentiment, expressed in both Iraq Wars: "Why the fuck didn't we just shoot the bastard?" Referring, of course, to Saddam Hussein.

And this thought intensified as every reason for a troop presence vanished. As the search for weapons of mass destruction shifted from a solemn goal to a bitter joke, most were forced to ask why the hell we were there at all. Conservative and liberal politicians alike attested to our responsibility to rebuild what we had shattered. This self-serving sanctimony couldn't last long in a rational mind; as word came back of our money wasted on crony contracts and useless mercenaries, of government infiltration amidst the intensifying civil war, of this or that cultural landmark destroyed by American negligence or Iraqi madness still unchecked, public faith in America's ability to fix anything in Iraq plummeted. It was very well to talk about World War Two or the building of the Panama Canal or of putting a man on the moon. The patriotic truism that America could do anything it put its mind to clashed very severely with the truth of what we actually were doing, and paying billions of dollars to do.

The pragmatic military justification of going to war had collapsed. The humanitarian justification for staying at war looked increasingly bankrupt. One reason remained, and in fact was the only strengthened by the continuation of our occupation: the fighting of terror. Even critics of the war agreed (and in fact were the first to argue) that Iraq had become a training ground for terrorists.

The new question became "How many people exactly do you need to hunt and kill terrorists?" The answer tends to be "Not many," and variations on this sentiment abound: from those who say Saddam's assassination would have done the trick; to split-the-difference Democrats who argue, like Joe Biden, for a reduction in troop levels but a continuing troop presence; and then there is the suggestion of special operations, of units pejoratively described as "death squads."

And let us be fair: I do not speak as a stranger to such opinions. I firmly believe that murder is an act preferable to war, and if one man may be murdered in cold blood to stop the deaths of thousands or even hundreds (even as those deaths may be, individually, more justified than the one executed in calculation), I would find it hard to argue against such an act. The tradition of cutting through thousands of men to get to one king and a handful of his closest advisers is something I find loathsome and, considering modern technology, increasingly unnecessary, no more practical than burying a Viking chieftain with his comeliest concubine, ritually strangled to mark the occasion, or throwing a wife on her deceased husband's funeral pyre. War is an exercise where 5% of the deaths may be necessary, or desirable, and 95% is decoration, prelude, or in the case of the War on Terror, distraction.

So why shouldn't we send in the assassination squads? Why are we holding back? This appears an instance where death-dealing prowess, calculated precision, and human compassion intersect.

Well, as I was digging around on the subject, I discovered that the funny thing is that we already have:

The close and largely clandestine relationship with Ethiopia also included significant sharing of intelligence on the Islamic militants' positions and information from American spy satellites with the Ethiopian military. Members of a secret American Special Operations unit, Task Force 88, were deployed in Ethiopia and Kenya, and ventured into Somalia, the officials said.

Task Force 88 was described in a little more depth in this uncritical article from Esquire:

Soon after, U.S. special operators flying out of Manda Bay were landing in southernmost Somalia, searching for survivors among the foreign fighters and Al Qaeda operatives just targeted in a furious bombardment by a U.S. gunship launched from a secret airstrip in eastern Ethiopia.

The 88's job was simple: Kill anyone still alive and leave no unidentified bodies behind....

In fact, Centcom was very eager for the operation. Most press leaks made it sound like our main targets were a trio of Al Qaeda senior operatives responsible for bombing American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania a decade ago. But the real story is one of pure opportunism, according to a knowledgeable source within the headquarters: "There were three thousand foreign fighters in there. Honestly, nobody had any idea just how many there really were. But we wanted to get them all."

When the invading Ethiopians quickly enjoyed unexpected success, Centcom's plan became elegantly simple: Let the blitzkrieging Ethiopian army drive the CIC, along with its foreign fighters and Al Qaeda operatives, south out of Mogadishu and toward the Kenyan border, where Kenyan troops would help trap them on the coast. "We begged the Kenyans to get to the border as fast as possible," the Centcom source says, "because the targets were so confused, they were running around like chickens with their heads cut off."

Once boxed in by the sea and the Kenyans, the killing zone was set and America's first AC-130 gunship went wheels-up on January 7 from that secret Ethiopian airstrip. After each strike, anybody left alive was to be wiped out by successive waves of Ethiopian commandos and Task Force 88, operating out of Manda Bay. The plan was to rinse and repeat "until no more bad guys," as one officer put it.

I say "uncritical" because the rest of the article makes clear that, in the author's opinion, secrecy wasn't the problem. The author even admits Ethiopia's authoritarianism, but doesn't see that as relevant to the story. No, the problem was that the truth got published in the New York Times (which strikes me as a delightful miracle). For a measure of his bizarre optimism, marvel, as I did, at what secret knowledge might permit the writer to judge for the reader: "It was a good plan."

Well, how good? How precise was the military strike? Not very. The Kenyan border, used as a net by the herding operation, was also gathering refugees.

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- Kenya is defending its action in turning back Somali refugees trying to enter the country to escape violence in their homeland....

The newspaper quoted the UNHCR's acting country representative, Eddy Gedalos, as saying U.N. officials were being denied access to refugees.

"We at the U.N. are genuinely concerned the fate of women and children turned away by Kenyan authorities, as it is likely to worsen the humanitarian situation in the war-torn country. There is no reason why genuine asylum seekers should not be allowed into the country."

In the end, no accusations can be cast because we still don't know what they did. What we do know is alone staggering: that our government plotted with an authoritarian regime to wage war in a country without telling the American people it was doing so. And that it carried out missions intended to exterminate thousands of people in the midst of a humanitarian crisis (caused by our surgical strikes and precise, efficient task forces) in which hundreds of thousands were put to flight.

And for believers in the death squad, which theoretically holds promise but in reality offers no alternative, guided as it is by the same strategic blindness that blunders elsewhere in the world, perhaps hope will survive. After all, if we don't know about its use, we can't be aware of its failures, and that means that there's always a chance for success. But I would say that we should really look at Somalia. That was the Pentagon's chance for Iraq done right, and I'll be damned if it doesn't look a hell of a lot like Iraq. Maybe it's not a matter of how we do things, but what we do, and why, and how we think about ourselves, and the world.

Sadly, this is not new. When poor students of history end up leading us, they lead us through history's darkest episodes. We also used death squads and assassinations in Vietnam, but we've already decided that we didn't lose that one. Dolchstosslegende and all that. And just look at all the success we had in Iran after we took out Mossadegh, or Guatemala after the coup that replaced Jacobo Arbenz with a military dictatorship. As with most matters, we've been down these roads before.

More of the Same

2008-03-06T09:41:00.002-05:00

On March 4, John McCain, just declared nominee for the Republican Party, stressed the need for leadership in Iraq, raising the specter of that most terrible crime:

The next President must explain how he or she intends to bring that war to the swiftest possible conclusion without exacerbating a sectarian conflict that could quickly descend into genocide...

Conservatives have been saying it for a while. Rick Perlstein addressed it last year.

This is important to address because there are many in moderate, liberal, and left camps who, no doubt troubled by the war, fear what could take place should we leave. What's important for these people to realize is that mass-murder is already taking place. The Iraq War has not been a problematic or incomplete solution. It has been the problem, attempting to fix what cannot be fixed by a foreign power: an internal power struggle.

The best way to address these solemn claims of what will follow is by asking what should follow, should we remain in Iraq. What, exactly, is McCain's plan for victory? Kill all the people who want their country back? If we kill all the participants in the civil war, who's going to be left in the country? As Perlstein explained regarding the case of Vietnam:

Finally, let us assume the premise of the conservatives' magical thinking: that we should have stayed and stayed and stayed, amidst the slaughter of yet more hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, by fellow Vietnamese and by us until our side eventually "won," leaving only then. If so, our Saigon allies would probably have likely been just as bloody-minded in their score-settling as the Communists. This was the bunch that, in 1960, reacted to the mere hint of an impending Communist insurgency by detaining 50,000 of their own citizens in their own re-education camps, the Pentagon Papers noting "the consensus of the opinion" of rural Vietnamese that "the majority of the detainees are neither Communists nor pro-Communist." This was the government whose vice president Nguyen Cao Ky—the power behind the throne, actually—said, "People ask me who my heroes are. I have only one—Hitler." Indeed, another anti-Communist Asian strongman, Indonesia's General Suharto, enacted a genuine genocide, one to make the Vietnamese Communists look like pikers. "In terms of the numbers killed," as the CIA described it, "massacres in Indonesia rank as one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century."

And, as has been extensively documented, ethnic cleansing is underway. My God, there are some 4 million internal and external Iraqi refugees in the world. Yes, by all means, let's keep up the American violence. Better the atrocity you know, I suppose.

Domestic Abuse

2008-03-05T08:22:00.003-05:00

As Patty's armchair foreign affairs analyst, I'll leave any discussion of the primaries to her. But I do want to make one note before I get to my daily gripe:

Keith Olbermann observed last night during the election coverage that McCain's comeback was comparable to Winston Churchill's. The British leader's political demise was also predicted prematurely. The liberal anchor instantly noted, of course, that he meant no undue comparison of quality. And that's fine. Now if it was Chris Matthews, that'd be something, but I think this was just Olbermann seizing the first example.

If I could talk to the MSNBC anchor, I'd remind him, however--he's thinking of Nixon. Nixon's career was considered over, and then he came back in an older, more virulent form to take over after a brutal war and terrible corruption. God, people in the 70s sure were dumb. Can you imagine anybody seeing LBJ and Vietnam and political consolidation and rampant dishonesty and then saying "You know who'll fix all this? Nixon!" Thank the Almighty we live in a more enlightened age.

Vital Background: Ethiopia

2008-03-03T11:38:00.003-05:00

It's a common sentiment in America, uttered in thousands of ways using various vocabulary, all expressing the same assumptions.

1. They hate us.
2. They hate us for no good reason.
3. They ought to get off our backs.

Why do they hate us so? Don't they appreciate the disaster relief and the Hollywood movies and the hand-wringing and blood-letting that we've offered over Iraq? Don't they appreciate that we're trying to help?

Well sometimes they do. Not that you'd ever learn Farsi to be able to tell. Not that our media would relay. Besides, we don't want too much of a love-fest leading to more rigorous humanitarian effort. Better to label the world ingrates so that you can support only military intervention and arms sales. Besides, defense contracting is so exciting when you see it in films like Transformers.

Hell, I can hear some radio blow-hard laughing already. We pay to see US fighter jets do their stuff in Hollywood films. Dropping missiles on some Somali fucks' houses? That's like a free show!

Well, I certainly feel better, but if you're still troubled by the prospect of other people not liking us very much, you might have the sick desire to read about something other than the free fireworks displays and general love-in that is the American presence abroad.

For example, let's meet our ally (for our warships assisted in their destruction of Somalian peace back in 2006 and 2007), Ethiopia.

Most famous as a place where people starve on television commercials, Ethiopia is actually a state in the throes of post-communist despotism. Ideology may be dead, but authoritarianism is alive and well and, freed up of any philosophy or responsibilities, it's actually thriving, able now to pursue the ageless desire of power for its own sake. It's the new world order! Nothing new, nothing orderly, and eventually, there'll be no world left! Swell.

Well, oddly enough, as we were supporting Ethiopia in its fight for freedom against Islamic extremism, they were butchering the political opposition and, though they were released last year, it seems that political chaos will still spell victory for the ruling party.

Now, the people of Ethiopia may see their oppressors allying with the United States, but they don't see the whole story. They only see the rape, disappearances, and massacres committed by Ethiopia. And they might think America hates them. But we don't. We clearly don't. We don't even know Ethiopians exist. Only a madman could think that someone hates when, in reality, we just don't care.

International No-Knock Policy

2008-03-03T11:32:00.000-05:00

So we bombed a village in Somalia today, killing at least 6, wounding at least 20. Said an unnamed military source:

We launched a deliberate strike against a suspected bed-down of known terrorists.

A crucial doubt sandwiched by irrelevant certainties. Yeah, he sounds like he works for the state. No word on whether the dead were these known terrorists. I suppose it doesn't matter.

You hear a lot of talk in the States about limited government. I've always wondered what that means beyond low taxation. Does a limited government get carte blanche to commit acts of war against other nations? Does legality exist only in isolation? Does it only matter in a domestic sense?

It's been one of the greatest philosophical crises of our age, and one that affects us in the real world and not just in some ideal scenario: how does one act as a tyrant abroad while fostering freedom at home? It's an old question really. It destroyed democrats of various ideology in the wake of World War One. And it has devastated American political philosophy in the wake of the Cold War (of which the War on Terror is a thematic and psychological sequel). Everywhere one sees the acrobatics of liberals, libertarians, and supposed small-government advocates who believed that America could do as it pleased to the Arabs or the Pashtuns while respecting the citizenry at home. Well, it isn't true, and it never has been true. All politics is local. The war always comes home.

Maybe we've been losing so long that we can no longer raise our voices in outrage. Maybe all the liberals, libertarians, and anti-state conservatives really do have a problem with killing six people with missile fire because their village just might have also contained a terrorist. Maybe we watch this all, throats hoarse, eyes watering with exhaustion, powerless to stop the clear cases of excess, powerless to even question our government's claims of higher wisdom, a wisdom which, never revealed to the initiate, is assumed to be beyond him, beyond us.

Maybe that's all true, but I already hear the screaming that will no doubt reach a maddening pitch by November, that if anything, America is too soft, too yielding, that we must be more aggressive, harder, fiercer, more frightening, less relenting, less respectful of granting barbarians the protection of law, more willing to do anything, more capable of doing anything, and less willing to tell us, for public knowledge is an insecurity, and we will stomach no gap through which a human being may pass.

FloriDuh Forever!

2008-02-26T11:46:00.005-05:00

America's Wang strikes a decisive blow for "heritage":

Lawmaker wants Confederate flag specialty plate in Fla.

Princess Sparkle Pony suggests a few more realistic designs.

Blog Spotlight: Oh Joy edition.

2008-02-24T12:11:00.000-05:00

Nader launches fourth unsuccessful presidential bid

But maybe it will be more entertaining this time around:

BREAKING: Ralph Nader to Start Own Party!

Juan Cole on John McCain

2008-02-20T13:02:00.002-05:00

Juan Cole delivers a terrific beating to John McCain and the historical blindness he represents.

It's the smartest rant you'll read all week, I'd wager.

Democracy: Not Peace but a Sword

2008-02-19T13:49:00.002-05:00

Serbia is wailing.

And who can blame them? According to their national narrative (or at least the most popular telling of it), they were born of defeat on Kosovo Plain, nearly 620 years ago. Then the Turk was the enemy and the Serbs were one of the many nations to defend the European lands of Christendom. Now it seems that Europe has betrayed their one-time defenders, and the Turks' Albanian coreligionists--converted by the sword during the Ottoman wars--are the beneficiaries.

I link above to a Washington Post editorial. It manages to express the ominous nature of Kosovan independence, but it also fails to say something that is necessary to say.

Perhaps our sympathies mean nothing. Certainly, feeling without action is useless in politics, but I think awareness counts for something, so I say this at the risk of sounding sentimental and condescending:

It is necessary now to see this from the Serbian side.

I cheer with the Kosovar Albanians. I think that home rule becomes necessary when a state shows itself incapable of tolerating its minorities. But I also know that such lines are crossed routinely. We can agree on despising injustice, but it is hard to know when injustice justifies the horror of war, which is an injustice in and of itself. Even as we sympathize with the minority province of Kosovo, we must remember the Serbs who have now themselves become a minority within the republic of Kosovo.

We must also remember that democracy has a nasty side. The republic is no more essentially peaceful than any other political system. It is merely an attempt to institutionalize conflict, and it is as prone to failure as any other. In some cases, it even exacerbates conflict (most notably, in the American example, by failing to settle conflict at all and thus creating more tension and hostility). A strong and large republic may conceivably be even less just than a small despotate, but that's another discussion.

Serbia feels as if its heart has been cut out. It must now feel as Germany felt when it lost Prussia, Russia when it lost Kiev, Greece when it lost Constantinople, Austria when it was forever landlocked by its former subjects. A thousand other nations have felt that, and it is a profound sadness. But whereas some cultural trends can be reversed--as we've seen, with mixed justice, in the Kurdish resettlement in northern Iraq--some have been done. And at that point, the past must bow to the future. Kosovo was Serbian. Now it exists for the Kosovans. May the Albanians use their freedom well, and rule justly.

Floridians: Vote on January 29th! Or else! :-P

2008-01-12T10:57:00.000-05:00

Florida Democrats: Your Primary Vote Matters (DailyKos version)

Florida Democrats: Your Primary Vote Matters (Florida Netroots version, for those afraid to visit the Great Orange Satan's(tm) website)

I'd been planning to write a detailed post about how important it is for everyone, but especially Democrats, to vote in the Presidential Preference Primary on Jan. 29. But now I don't have to, because meowmissy of DailyKos (a.k.a. Jennifer at Florida Netroots) has provided a far better piece about it than I ever could. See, procrastination has its merits. ;-)

Forget all that garbage you've been hearing about your vote "not counting." It does and it will, as meowmissy explains in detail. Feel free to forward either my post or hers to every registered voter in Florida you know, particularly Dems. There is far too much confusion and misunderstanding with respect to Florida moving its primary date to 1/29 against the wishes of the national Democratic Party, and we need to do everything we can to get the facts - and the voters - out there.

In addition, there are other items on the Jan. 29 ballot that must be voted on, the most important of which is the property tax reform amendment. I'm voting against this because our municipalities are already operating on a shoestring and have practically no tax revenue to invest in public works projects and services. My own city, South Daytona, was forced to cancel a sorely needed road improvement project (and, in doing so, also lost a substantial matching grant from the Florida DOT) due to the last round of cuts over the summer. Even if you don't own property and therefore don't need to pay such taxes, they still benefit you because that revenue is necessary to keeping your communities running. ***In the interest of full disclosure,*** I did receive a whopping $119.35 decrease in my tax bill from the last round of cuts, with which I can buy like 2.5 tanks of gas - for now, at least - or cover my monthly Netflix bill. Whoopee. (In case you can't tell, I'm being sarcastic.) See why the Florida League of Cities opposes this amendment as well.

The Florida Division of Elections will help you find early voting dates and sites, contact your local elections supervisor, see what's on the ballot regarding statewide issues, etc. Your own municipality may have additional items on which to vote, so just search Google for your city's web page or your county's Supervisor of Elections for that information. Early voting begins statewide this Monday, Jan. 14, and I strongly encourage you to take advantage of it if you can. The Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary have both had record turnouts, especially among Democratic voters, so don't run the risk of having to wait hours in line when you can take care of it early.

Remember, too, that Florida has a close primary system, which means only Democrats and Republicans can vote for their presidential candidate preference, and only within their own party. However, all registered voters, regardless of party affiliation, can and should vote for the other issues on the ballot.

If you have other election information needs, post them in comments and I'll do my best to find the answer. :-)

SO, LIKE, GO VOTE AND STUFF! LOLZ!!1!!111!

Sixty-six percent: a water story.

2007-10-15T13:09:00.000-04:00

[This post is part of Blog Action Day's "Blog for the Environment" campaign.]

Earlier this week, a construction crew working on a main thoroughfare in Daytona Beach broke open a water main, resulting in the city issuing the standard "boil water" notice. Luckily I live one town south, so my home water wasn't affected. I do, however, work in the greater Daytona area, and we couldn't use our water fountains, get some fountain drinks or coffee, and were generally advised to avoid ingesting any tap water without boiling it for at least three minutes beforehand. It wasn't a big deal for me since I usually only use tap water to make hot tea and I rarely drink sodas, fountain or otherwise.

The boil water alert was active for nearly two days, a bit longer than usual. I was better prepared the next day and brought a container of water from home. When I entered our little "dining" area, where the microwave, coffee maker, etc. are located, I encountered another employee fumbling with the coffee maker and seeming rather more agitated than usual; he's normally quite calm and low-key. Turns out, he was desperately trying to figure out how to work the coffee maker (using bottled water), because he couldn't buy his usual cup of coffee (made with tap water) anywhere on campus.

At first I was surprised that this man, an adult with a family and clearly a coffee drinker, didn't seem to have a clue how to operate a relatively simple household appliance. I then pondered why he didn't just bring coffee from home or from a coffee shop near where he lived, as his city wasn't subject to the boil water alert either.

And then I had another thought, one somewhat more troubling: if the guy was this helpless at the threat of facing a day without his morning coffee due to a temporary, barely inconvenient water restriction, how would he be able to handle the long-term water shortages of the future?

It's been said that future wars will be fought not over oil, or land, or religion, or race, but over water. And in fact, military uses and abuses of water supplies are hardly new phenomenons; they go back millennia. The human body can survive about a month - possibly more - without food, but only about a week without water, so it makes sense from a military perspective to cut off or poison an enemy's water supply to encourage a quicker surrender. But what can civilization expect to face when we're fighting not so much for control of an abundant, safe supply of water, but rather over the last few drops of drinkable water that remain at all?

Tragedies have occurred when water is forced to do something outside the scope of its natural design. Consider the Johnstown flood, the Teton Dam collapse, and the New Orleans levee failures. It also seems frighteningly clear that our ever-advancing technology doesn't seem to hold water, as it were, such as in the case of the cryptosporidium outbreak in Milwaukee in 1993. Water is an incredibly powerful force that does not always react as desired when humans challenge its authority.

Residents of the developed world tend to view water as a "free" resource. True, most of us pay a monthly water bill, but we generally feel that grants us access to as much or as little water as we need or want. And seriously, when something flows as freely as water (no pun intended), we're far more likely to use more than less. Imagine, instead, if we were sent a bill every single time we turned on a faucet in our homes. Just the thought of tracking and paying all those bills might give us pause to reflect on the fact that fresh, clean water is a vital resource and a limited one at that.

Water is, without a doubt, one of the most useful and essential resources to which we are lucky enough to have access. It's a refreshment, a cleaning component, an energy generator, a food provider, a hobby, an employer, a focus of meditation. The sound of rushing, flowing, trickling water is a music all its own and soothes the souls of animal and man. Perhaps this is because our own bodies are 66% water, roughly the same percentage as water is to the surface of the Earth. Is it any wonder, then, that water is so essential to our very existence, and is it any wonder that the more the Earth's water becomes undrinkable and inaccessible, the more we suffer? It's often easy for thoughtless people to suggest that if someone doesn't want to drown, they should move away from flood-prone areas. But when you consider all that water does for our bodies, minds, and spirits, not to mention that throughout history, it has usually been advantageous for wandering peoples to settle near water bodies and for civilizations to prosper near them, "just moving away" isn't exactly a viable option.

The amount of water we waste is incredible. We leave our water running when we wash our hands, shave, brush our teeth. We take long soothing showers. We think nothing of throwing old ice cubes down the drain instead of onto our lawns or plants. We drink from water fountains which are so poorly designed that most of the water doesn't even enter our mouths. I've seen people throw nearly full bottles of water into a trash can because they thought the water "went bad" after sitting in a hot car for a few days, and I've seen people who let their automatic sprinklers run in a rainstorm. Should we really be shocked, then, when we learn that Atlanta has a three-month supply of water, and Lake Okeechobee's water level reached record lows earlier this year?

Our industrialized, production-oriented society, coupled with consumer demand, is just as guilty. For example, it takes 39,090 gallons of water to build a car, 1,851 gallons to process a barrel of crude oil, and 28,100 gallons to process one ton of cane sugar into white, refined sugar. So many of our modern conveniences simply could not be produced without water. And so far, no one has been able to manufacture water.

In essence, while we haven't yet achieved man-made water, we certainly aren't lacking in man-made water crises.

But back to the story that started these musings. The water restriction was lifted after two days, my co-worker got his coffee, and all was once again right with the world, at least for the time being. But someday, it may take longer for a water restriction to be lifted. And there may even come a day when the restriction is permanent, when there is so little water available that it's reserved for the highest bidder, or it's so badly tainted as to be unusable. What will soothe, support, sustain us then?

Sources:
Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Metro Atlanta's need for water: three months from a mudhole
CNN.com. Milwaukee learned its water lesson, but many other cities haven't
Environmental Protection Agency. Water trivia facts
National Geographic News. New Orleans flooded in wake of Hurricane Katrina
Pacific Institute. Water conflict chronology
South Florida Sun-Sentinel. New federal plan would keep Lake O's water levels lower than normal
Teton Dam Project

[Crossposted to Daily Kos.]

Stupidest email yet from Tom Feeney (R-FL-Abramoff)

2007-10-13T15:00:00.000-04:00

While I certainly don't enjoy hearing from Tom Feeney in any medium, the sad fact is, he's my Congressman and I need to keep track of what he's up to. I've been subscribed to his email list for a couple years, and when I see his name in my inbox, can always count on being amused, annoyed, disgusted, angered, confused, or some combination of those emotions. Not to mention, he's been known to make factual errors and misrepresentations in these emails (shocking, I know), and I've even been compelled to write back to him with corrections on a couple of occasions. The most recent one was earlier this year when ol' Tom perpetuated the childish misnomer "Democrat Party." I gently informed him that the correct phrase is "Democratic Party" and suggested he have his staff more carefully proofread these emails before they get sent, because otherwise his constituents just might think he's ignorant.

Tom regularly rails against teh ileegul imagrintsOHN0EZ!@@!! and is proud of his anti-SCHIP vote. But this week's email really took the cake. My first reaction on seeing the subject line was, "The hell?" as it made no sense to me whatsoever. Anyway, here it is in all its glory, for your own WTF?ing pleasure:

TOM FEENEY
Member of Congress
24th District, Florida

Financial Services Committee
Judiciary Committee
Science Committee

Congress of the United States
House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 11, 2007

Contact: Pepper Pennington
202-225-2706
202-593-1253

Capitol Architect No Longer Censors Architect of the Universe

(Oviedo, FL) - U.S. Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Oviedo) was pleased that the Architect of the Capitol, Mr. Stephen T. Ayers is now allowing "God" on flag certificates. Earlier this week, Rep. Feeney expressed his frustration with reports that flag certificates using the word "God" were being censored by the Architect of the Capitol. Mr. Ayers had reportedly informed several congressional offices that the use of the word “God” violates the Architect’s rules prohibiting religious references on flag certificates.

"I'm pleased that the Architect of the Capitol is no longer censoring the Architect of the Universe. Fortunately, he responded to congressional pressure and public outcry and decided that 'God' may now be used in flag certificates.

"I was outraged earlier this week to learn that Americans are censored because they want to fly a flag over the Capitol and express their faith or even say something as simple as 'for the love of God, family, and Country.'

"I want to thank my colleagues for joining me to sign a letter to Speaker Pelosi that reminds the Architect of his authority and the scope of his office. The Capitol contains many religious symbols and now Speaker Pelosi needs to condemn the censorship," said Feeney.

Rep. Feeney's office offers a flag service to constituents. This is a very popular service where Central Floridians can purchase flags to be flown over the United States Capitol. The flags are also accompanied by certificates from the office of the Architect of the Capitol that details the date and the occasion that the flag was flown.

Rep. Feeney signed a letter to Speaker Pelosi asking for an immediate review of the authority under which the Architect is making these rules, as well as the reversal of this policy which censors our citizens’ right to expressions of their faith.

When I first read that subject line prior to opening his email, all that came to mind was Masters of the Universe. Now, I freely confess to never being a particular fan of the MOTU franchise, but I do at least know He-Man, She-Ra, and Skeletor. But which one was the Architect, and what powers did he possess? Could he speed-read blueprints? Mix thousands of tons of concrete with his bare hands? Keep the nation's infrastructure from collapsing? (That last one certainly would come in handy these days!)

Then I realized, of course, that Tom was talking about God. What a buzzkill, especially after momentarily thinking our crumbling infrastructure would be mysteriously repaired overnight, with the only clue as to whom accomplished this monumental task being "AotU" scrawled into the cement before it dried. (He couldn't have used just "AU," of course, lest the credit mistakenly be ascribed to Americans United.)

It never hurts to remind everyone that Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has listed Feeney among its most corrupt Congressmen since practically the day he took office. I'm still supporting Clint Curtis for FL-24, and there's now a DCCC-recruited challenger, former FL state Representative Suzanne Kosmas.

I look forward to one of these candidates winning FL-24 in 2008 and thus relieving me of further WTF? email moments, as least as far as Tom Feeney is concerned. I get too many of those moments without his help.

Race tracker wiki: FL-24

US to arm repressive, corrupt, Al-Qaeda-funding petroleum dictatorship.

2007-07-28T12:34:00.000-04:00

What do you need to know?

Well, they justify it in terms of opposing Iran. For those keeping score, Iran is more democratic than Saudi Arabia, if still terribly authoritarian.

And in case the Israelis get out of line, we're throwing them just enough aid to shut them up. All the Jewish-world-conspiracy folks should take note. As I said in my previous post, it's clear who wields the other.

Whether you like it or not, we're allied to these people. If you're interested in further research, there's an old Orientalist theory called that of hydraulic empire that explained that Middle Eastern despotism was fueled by control of water. We all know what keeps these rulers in power now--oil. It doesn't keep the people in line, but it allows for wealthy foreign allies who'll do the job.

We're less willing to admit that maybe we wouldn't have such a democracy gap in the Middle East if we didn't so frequently, and with such rare exception, come down on the side of those holding the whips. Forgive my tired old leftist lament. We helped the land-owners in Latin America, the torturers in the Shah's SAVAK, and we do the same with this farce of sheiks and princes and kings. Iran, huh? Does anyone buy that?

Right now we give the Saudis arms so that they may keep freedom from coming to Arabia.

To say nothing of what we've done to Israel...

2007-06-19T14:42:00.000-04:00

I ignored it when it came up, because I wanted to have a conversation, not a screaming match.

It actually turned out to be a decent conversation.

But now I was reading some more news, and it came back to me, so I have to bitch about it. It's time again for me to apologize, since it's been a while since I've made a really well-crafted post. In any case, I proceed.

I can't remember what I was talking about. It may have been the troubles of managing a republic when there are deep cultural fissures. It was a general statement.

My father-in-law likes to repeat phrases, particularly in argument or discussion. There is none of the ceremony of quoting scripture but all of the rest; when he quotes himself or some editorial he long ago integrated, there is finality of thought, and like many intellectuals and many fundamentalists, he thinks that his knowledge can be applied to any field. He displayed the latter when a discussion about the difficulty of popular governance led to him noting that "It's like the Palestinians. The more you give them, the more they want."

I moved forward, undeterred, displaying a bit of intellectual sluggishness of my own, again to avert a screaming match.

I'm sure many are inclined to agree with my father-in-law. After all, in this country if you believe that Israelis have a right to exist or that Israel can be a force for good in the world, it follows that you have to deny any and all victimization of the Palestinians, either reducing their experience or arguing that they have deserved all of it. It's the same logic that hardline, anti-Israeli Palestinians employ.

Nevertheless, even as a person who looks on Israel with great respect, I have to ask what, exactly, "we" or anyone else have given the Palestinians.

The Arabs have given the Palestinians a pitiful existence in refugee camps and prolonged the problem of statelessness for more and less justifiable reasons (high unemployment preventing assimilation, in the former case, and anti-Israelism in the latter). They also gave the Palestinians a sense of being fractured, a sense of both transnational identity and division due to different experience. Or have you ever wondered why Gaza, occupied by Egypt for so long and run essentially as the world's most densely populated open-air prison, seems to have a different culture than, say, the West Bank?

And what of the West Bank? Well, here you saw what the Jordanians gave the Palestinians, which was essentially nothing, but here you also see Israeli-built universities and other facilities. Built entirely for the Palestinians. The first people of the modern age to care for the Palestinians were probably the Israelis.

But let's not forget, how could we forget, the experience of being swept out of the country. Israel kept some Muslim allies, like the Bedouins and the Druze, but when they defeated the Arab states that had attacked them, they didn't merely fight the foreign armies. They went after the background Muslim population. It's all in Jabotinsky, who wrote:

All colonization, even the most restricted, must continue in defiance of the will of the native population. Therefore, it can continue and develop only under the shield of force which comprises an Iron Wall which the local population can never break through. This is our Arab policy. To formulate it any other way would be hypocrisy.

The old nationalists wrote with clarity and honesty that we will not soon regain.

Now the irony is this--that as the Israeli revolutionaries did this, they were fighting Arabs who did not think of themselves in a nationalistic manner. But this act, this act of expulsion, forged a national consciousness. Before Israel, Palestine's Muslims were Arabs, a few Turks, and some Gypsies. We all know what the Israeli expulsion and the Arab refusal of accommodation led to. Palestinians owe their very self-identification to Israel.

But what do they hold? What have we given them, not in experience but in material reality?

A non-viable state? An incubator state, born in parts, kept alive by tubes, crawling with parasites and itself a parasite, forever dependent on the pity of those stronger? If it were a child I would let it die, but is it not all they have?

Have we promised economic development? Yes, though it has not arrived yet, and the ease with which Israel turns off electricity and water in Gaza should show you that the Palestinians will still be renting their rump state.

I do not mean to indulge in a full assessment of the Palestinians, let alone of their conflict with the Israelis. The average American citizen, unable to set his own focus, unable to look at the small and the large in their own context, forever set in perspective by the larger media, will throw out red herrings.

Have they committed terrorism? Yes, many certainly have.
Have they embraced Islamic fundamentalism? Recently, and in part, yes they have.
Do they tell anti-Semitic lies? Yes, they read translations of Russian books and spread libels learnt from the Greeks.

Are they a troublesome culture, a troubled culture? Most certainly. But what have we given them? Not a lot.

The Israelis have given them tremendous engines of self-improvement and many Palestinians have employed those means. The Americans have occasionally treated them as a people with the right to self-determination, and that is immeasurable as well.

But compare them to other groups in the region. Hezbollah has more legitimacy, room to operate, and potential for political gain, than an entire people. And that's what it breaks down to--power. What have they been given? Nothing that has gained them anything in the great search for power over their national destiny. The best option remains citizenship in Israel.

I make no argument as to what America, or Israel, should give. That is another thought entirely. But the notion that the United States is practically showering the world with blessings and that the world is responding with ungrateful insolence? That probably says more about a few generations of self-absorbed, emotionally needy egotists than it does of the net effect of all that we have done for and to the Palestinians.

Foreign Entanglements

2007-05-31T14:59:00.000-04:00

My lovely host should probably fire me. I hope my absence is forgiven. The assassination of Hrant Dink sent this writer into a deep period of introspection and disappointment. I meant to make a post about it; that post turned into a term paper and the last of my undergraduate career.

If you aren't reading Juan Cole, I suggest that you start. He writes clearly and cleverly and he understands the Middle East like a machine. As a Machiavellian, I appreciate people who are precise about political developments. I'm the type of person who gags when we talk in airy manners about "our friends" and who supposedly hates whom. So much emotional talk in American rhetoric. It's unhealthy.

That said, Cole's Informed Comment is a pleasure to read. Today he cuts down a simplistic and comforting analogy (aren't all our errors conveniently comparable to great actions of the past?) uttered by the president. But he doesn't only show President Bush to, indeed, employ small-minded and dishonest logic in his speaking engagements, but he also vindicates another ruling George. It was Washington, wasn't it, who warned of foreign entanglements?

If foreign obligation is the modern form of a royal marriage, our republic's servants now behave like the Roman aristocracy, or the Borgias. Without necessity or hesitation, we find ourselves in bed with not only some of the worst men in the world, but many bitter enemies. And now, the long trail of conquests and compromises are seeing us poised for a strategic disaster. I'll leave you to decide whether this is due to excessive or insufficient complexity in our plotting.

Cole's analysis addresses the myriad ties of the region, but I'll note another theater of this strategic collapse. Are we really pushing Russia away from us at a time like this?

"We don't argue with cranks."

2007-04-30T17:05:00.000-04:00

Finally, some ground rules. We don't argue with cranks. Part of understanding denialism is knowing that it's futile to argue with them, and giving them yet another forum is unnecessary. They also have the advantage of just being able to make things up and it takes forever to knock down each argument as they're only limited by their imagination while we're limited by things like logic and data. Recognizing denialism also means recognizing that you don't need to, and probably shouldn't argue with it. Denialists are not honest brokers in the debate (you'll hear me harp on this a lot). They aren't interested in truth, data, or informative discussion, they're interested in their world view being the only one, and they'll say anything to try to bring this about. We feel that once you've shown that what they say is deceptive, or prima-facie absurd, you don't have to spend a graduate career dissecting it and taking it apart. It's more like a "rule-of-thumb" approach to bad scientific argument. That's not to say we won't discuss science or our posts with people who want to honestly be informed, we just don't want to argue with cranks. We have work to do.
- Mark Hoofnagle, intro post to ScienceBlogs: Denialism

Oh, Snap! I do believe I will be visiting Denialism frequently, in a manner of speaking. ;-)

FL-24: (Re)Introducing Clint Curtis.

2007-04-28T13:46:00.000-04:00

In the 2006 election, I did a small amount of volunteer work on the U. S. House (District 24) campaign of Clint Curtis, the man who challenged Republican incumbent Tom Feeney and intends to do so again in 2008. Over the past few days, a plethora of stories has appeared in the traditional news media and the blogosphere about the FBI finally having a chat with Feeney regarding his relationship with former corrupt powerhouse lobbyist and current convicted felon Jack Abramoff. Here's a tiny sampling in case anyone needs to catch up:

DailyKos diaries containing the tag "Tom Feeney"
TPMmuckraker: Feeney: Jack Who?
The Hotline: Romney's Deputy Campaign Manager Resigns
McClatchy News Service: Congressman queried on Abramoff ties
St. Petersburg (FL) Times: Feeney trip's costs were hidden

I can think of no better time to reintroduce Clint. Some of you may know Clint as the man who testified under oath before a voting forum initiated by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) in December 2004. This YouTube video has Clint's entire testimony:

Rigged USA Elections Exposed (length: 12 min)

It's difficult to condense Clint's story because of all the bizarre twists and turns it's taken since he met Feeney in the year 2000. Here are the most basic details:

Curtis is a programmer who worked for Yang Enterprises (YEI) in Oviedo, Florida until February 2001. Curtis is notable chiefly for making a series of "whistleblower" allegations about his employer YEI and powerful Republican Congressman Tom Feeney.... At the time of the alleged incidents, Feeney was simultaneously YEI's corporate attorney, a registered lobbyist for YEI, and a member of Florida's House of Representatives. He also maintained his election office in the YEI building....

In September 2000, at the behest of Rep. Feeney, [Clint] was asked to write a program for a touchscreen voting machine that would make it possible to change the results of an election undetectably. This technology, explained Curtis, could also be used in any electronic tabulation machine or scanner.... Curtis spoke about this to the Conyers Voting Forum, after Conyers left the forum and turned over the dais to a local politician, on 2004-12-13....

On March 3, 2005, Curtis took a polygraph test.... The test did not detect any attempt at deception on the part of Curtis in any of his responses. Curtis has stated that the test was based on all the allegations in the affidavit that was provided to Conyer's Voting Forum.

Please refer to Clint's dKosopedia entry for a more complete story and numerous links to outside sources.

Unfortunately, Clint is still not very well known beyond the sphere of people and groups particularly concerned with election manipulation. (I mean no disrespect here; all progressives are very much worried about the sad state of this country's electoral system. I'm referring, though, to the people involved with the "nuts and bolts" of elections.) Clint ran against Feeney in the 2006 election, but "lost" the election to Feeney, 58% to 42%. Sixteen percent is a sizable margin, to be sure, until one considers the following:

Clint didn't enter the race until March 2006, a painfully short time to raise money and gain support in time for the fall elections
Clint had to expend resources defeating a Dem primary challenger, while Feeney had no primary opponent
Clint's campaign warchest was a fraction of Feeney's (I don't have exact figures, but I've heard it was something like $100,000 vs. over $3 million)
Clint received little or no financial or other assistance from the DCCC or other prominent national groups

You may be wondering why I enclosed the word lost in quotes in the above statement about the 2006 election. This is because Clint has not conceded the election to Feeney and has called for an independent investigation into voting irregularities he and his team believe they've uncovered:

Curtis did not concede the race because the 16% loss did not reflect the Zogby Poll taken just weeks before the election nor the polling conducted by the online vote verification tool www.VoteNow2006.net . Instead, he enlisted a dedicated group of grassroots election integrity volunteers who have been Walking For Democracy by canvassing the 24th District since November. They have interviewed individual voters and gathered data. In every precinct studied, the data shows that Curtis received 12-24% more votes than stated in the official result. Unlike Christine Jennings in Florida’s 13th Congressional District, which has 18,000 missing votes that can not be verified, the group has gathered hard evidence that shows exactly where the election results are inaccurate. [emphasis mine]

Brad Friedman of Brad Blog interviewed Clint in March on the Walking For Democracy effort.

All these considerations lead me, at least, to believe that if Clint can gather grassroots/netroots and national support starting now, 18 months before the 2008 election, and with Feeney's name now plastered all over the place in connection with Jack Abramoff, Clint has an excellent chance of winning the FL-24 seat.

There are some rumors floating around that Clint is unhinged, delusional, paranoid, etc. I've met the man, having done a small amount of volunteer work on his 2006 campaign, and I can tell you he's none of these things, although I can certainly say he's "insanely committed" to election honesty and integrity, something we sorely need in today's political climate. He's an honest man who works tirelessly on election fraud issues. And he has a sharp, dry wit and a silly sense of humor. (I once stopped by his campaign office in Daytona Beach wearing my uniform for my tai chi school, and he tried to get me to "attack him" so I could demonstrate some moves. After I explained that tai chi is purely a defensive martial art and I could not fight back unless someone attacked me first, he then attempted to enlist an elderly man standing nearby to attack me instead.)

Clint Curtis basically ended up in a bizarre situation very few of us could imagine. But instead of just "getting over it" as his detractors might hope, he decided not to take it lying down. Clint could have easily made the decision to protect himself and his reputation by fading into the woodwork, but because he's an ethical man who loves America, he decided to make immense personal and professional sacrifices to bring the truth to light. Wow, could I possibly have used any more cheesy cliches in this paragraph? Tee hee. Sorry, but it's true.

At any rate, who would you rather have in Congress - an "unhinged" Democrat who fights like hell for election integrity, or just another corrupt Republican resident of the House that Jack Built? ;-)

Please donate to Clint if you can. You don't have to live in the FL-24 district to do so. All you have to do is care about fair and honest elections.

Clint Curtis for Congress

Race tracker wiki: FL-24

[crossposted with minor modifications to DailyKos]

Life Imitates Art.

2007-04-21T12:05:00.000-04:00

Or politics imitates satire. Either way.

The Onion, 11/7/2006:
Republicans Blame Election Losses On Democrats

The Carpetbagger Report, 4/21/2007:
Low-down, conniving "Democrat Party" plans to steal House seat by running candidate for it

Pigs fly. Hell freezes over.

2007-04-11T20:10:00.000-04:00

I like a Republican.

Most Florida felons who complete their sentences will have their voting and other civil rights more quickly restored under a rule approved Thursday by Republican Gov. Charlie Crist and the state clemency board.

All but the most violent felons would avoid the need to get on a long list for a hearing before the board, which sometimes takes years. The board voted 3-1 on the immediate change, which also requires felons to pay all court-ordered restitution to their victims before becoming eligible to get their rights back.

Full story:
State clemency board votes to automatically restore felons' rights

I was cautiously optimistic when Crist got elected. I liked several of his campaign promises, but as with many politicians, they're often just empty promises which go right down the toilet after they take office. So far, though, Crist seems to be living up to them.

Attorney General Bill McCollum mounted passionate opposition, calling it "a sad day for Florida," "a big mistake," and later describing Crist's actions as "liberal." McCollum said that the changes Crist favored would have allowed John Couey, the killer of Jessica Lunsford, to regain his civil rights....

Excluded from the automatic category are criminals who have committed murder, manslaughter, DUI manslaughter, sexual battery, lewd and lascivious crimes, child abuse, treason and terrorism.

Full story:
A titanic clash of philosophies

Of course, leave it to a far more typical wingnut Repukelican to a) not bother to read/comprehend/care that the automatic category specifically excludes scumbags like Couey, and b) use the term "liberal" as if it were an insult.

A wingnut's dilemma.

2007-04-04T23:19:00.000-04:00

It seems that in his haste to denigrate Al Gore and his relentless efforts to help people understand the climate change crisis and its not-so-difficult solutions, religious right leader and supreme wingnut Tony Perkins of Family Research Council kinda sorta forgot he's supposed to take the bible literally:

During the session, Gore's "Chicken Little" scenarios were met with skepticism, particularly from Senate Republicans like Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., who said he, like many scientists, believed the dire global warming projections were a "hoax." On the House side, the former vice president was called a prophet by some Democratic members but his revelations were challenged by others. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, cited 600,000-year-old scientific evidence that Gore's carbon dioxide claims are false.

Ah, Tony? Doesn't the bible say the earth is only around 10,000 years old? Aren't all scientific discoveries that claim to prove otherwise simply false
"evidence" planted by Satan to mislead us (or false evidence planted by God
to test our faith, depending on which version of the bible you believe or
which religious charlatan you follow)?

I'm eagerly waiting to see which contradictory extremist fallacy prevails
here. Will Perkins condemn Rep. Barton for citing evidence that, by the
bible's definition, can't possibly be true? What's more powerful - the right
wing extremists' love of the bible, or their fear and loathing of Al Gore
and everything he represents?

Personally, I'm betting on the fear and loathing. Hate always seems to win out with these people.

h/t slacktivist

Roundup: Writings on U. S. Attorney purge scandal

2007-03-24T19:15:00.000-04:00

Following are some of the best analyses I've read over the past several days regarding the firing of the U. S. attorneys by the Bush Administration. These are only a tiny sampling of the many great explanations floating around. I selected them because they helped me understand what was really going on, and if I can understand it, anyone can. :-)

Josh Marshall and the Talking Points Memo team was one of the first to see the firings as just a tad unusual, as opposed to "standard procedure" when a new President takes office, then sunk their collective teeth in and didn't let go. Josh explains why the scandal really isn't hard to understand and wonders why the traditional media still can't - or won't - get it:

Like Atrios, I'm a bit mystified by Michael Kinsley's apparently determined obtuseness about the US Attorney Purge

The Carpetbagger Report reluctantly revisits the worn-out, predictable, and utterly full of shit "Clinton did it too" defense that the right wing never fails to trot out when they're busted. For a bunch of people who claim to loathe the Big Dog, they sure don't hesitate to copy every evil thing he (n)ever did and multiply it tenfold:

Again with the 'Clinton Did It' defense? (be sure to click the Media Matters link for the whole article)

Digby addresses both of the above topics with his/her unique perspective, dousing it with an entirely justified rant regarding the "creeping authoritarianism" exhibited by the Republican Party over the last few decades:

All scandals are not created equal

Former White House counsel John Dean explains the unitary executive theory and its relation to executive privilege, why BushCo is - to put it mildly - hesitant to submit to Democratic demands for Karl Rove and Harriet Miers to testify under oath, and doesn't envy new White House Counsel Fred Fielding's job:

New Developments in the U.S. Attorney Controversy

The always spot-on Washington Post columnist, E. J. Dionne Jr., doesn't disappoint with his report on executive privilege. Dionne's operative statement, "So many principles that Republicans held dear when they were trying to take Clinton down are no longer operative," hits it:

Inserting politics into Justice (free registration may be required)

Two of the Attorneys at the center of the scandal tell their stories:

David Iglesias: Why I was fired

Cummins fears corruption investigation led to his firing

Numerous DailyKos diaries address the sneaky non-governmental email address run off the Republican National Committee's server, gwb43.com, used by Rove and others to circumvent the Presidential Records Act, and oh, which just might present a teensy bit of a national security problem, among other things:

DailyKos diaries on "gwb43"

You know, no matter how disgusted we are by the activities of the Bush Administration, it's hard not to have a grudging admiration for the depths they will plumb in order to satisfy their powerlust and demonize anyone who looks at them the wrong way, and seem damn proud of it no less. It's sort of like how one can "admire" the way Ted Bundy managed to spend several years getting away with kidnapping, raping, and murdering dozens of girls and revisiting their decomposing corpses to engage in necrophilia, without making any real attempt to hide his crimes, and then remaining arrogant and defiant throughout his many trials and appeals.

Um, yeah. That's pretty much exactly what BushCo reminds me of. And if I wasn't opposed to the death penalty, I'd wish they'd end up just like Ted.

Climate Change, part 2: Job Opportunity!

2007-03-23T12:50:00.000-04:00

Tired of your mundane career? Want to be afforded easy wealth, fabricated prestige, and sycophantic interviews on fair and balanced news networks just by telling trained experts with decades of peer-reviewed research under their belts that they're full of shit? Willing to do anything for money, and don't care about being respected in the morning? Perhaps a career as a climate change denier is for you!

Formal education requirements: nothing that would matter.

Required experience/qualifications: must be able to - digest and regurgitate neocon anti-environment talking points without spewing bilious vomit; accept money to say things you know are flagrant lies; not fear looking like an utter maroon with the mentality of a 2-year-old in front of your colleagues and thousands of TV viewers.

Preferred experience/qualifications: bizarre, unfounded distrust and fear of Democrats, liberals, progressives, environmentalists, and anyone else who wants to make society a better place for all living things, with a particular frothing, seizure-prone contempt for Al Gore (will provide on-the-job training); membership with the Republican or Libertarian Parties (if hired, membership fees and subsequent contributions will be reimbursed).

Benefits: undying respect and fellating from the current occupant of the White House and its supporters; guaranteed job with a successful organization upon "retirement".

Workplace culture: You will work with many respected peers in the field of human-induced climate change denial, such as a pair of has-been magicians who'd previously applied to lick the water torture device of Criss Angel, but were deemed grossly underqualified; a writer of dreary, formulaic science fiction novels with an adorable flair for immortalizing his critics as child molesters; and a host of well-paid, conscience-free organizations and individuals whose research is ~~bought and paid for~~ generously supported by successful multinational corporations. Marsha, please remove that "bought and paid for" bit before posting this on Monster.com – Thanks! the Boss

You will not be expected to waste valuable PR spin time on actual research or present facts or data; doing so is cause for immediate dismissal.

If you meet these qualifications, or hell, just own a Brooks Brothers suit and have good hair, please send your resume, cover letter, and references from three oil company executives to the Natural Resources Stewardship Project.

Actual trained and experienced climate scientists, dirty hippie treehugger libruls, and people capable of thinking for themselves need not apply.

Climate change, part 1: It's not your fault.

2007-02-18T13:36:00.000-05:00

You're invited to an elegant dinner party at a good friend's home. The table is set with your host's finest china and crystal glassware, passed down through a couple of generations. Delicious food is in abundance and bottle after bottle of expensive wine is consumed. Everyone's talking, laughing, flirting... no one can recall having a more enjoyable evening.

And then, a terrible thing happens. In the midst of exuberant storytelling, you become a bit overly expressive and knock an heirloom wine glass off the table. The glass was very old and the pattern has been out of production for decades. A hush falls over the room as everyone looks at the host, then at you, then back at the host. It was an accident, pure and simple. No one can legitimately blame you, although on the car rides home, the other guests might say you got too drunk. You weren't paying attention. You've always been a bit clumsy. That story you were telling was kinda stupid anyway, so you shouldn't have been telling it in the first place.

You beg forgiveness of your host. You offer to spare no expense or effort to try to replace the glass. Your host graciously declines, assuring you she knows it was just an accident, and besides, it's not the first glass of that set that's been broken. You are both completely sincere, even though you also both realize there is practically no chance that glass can ever be replaced, and your host truly is disappointed. You feel bad, and rightfully so. You're a human being with feelings and compassion (at least, I hope you are). You're responsible for breaking that glass, even though you weren't at fault.

The nice thing about responsibility is that the word itself isn't inherently accusatory. It's a mature, objective word that, for the most part, rather benignly encompasses the results of our actions within the larger cosmos. Everything on the planet is, to a greater or lesser extent, directly or indirectly responsible for something else. The word fault, on the other hand, suggests some degree of guilt, particularly in relation to an undesired outcome, whether that outcome was intended or not. And people don't like to be told they're guilty of something bad, especially when all they were doing was going about their legitimate business in a place where they had every right to do so.

If we now apply this allegory to human-induced climate change, perhaps we can get past the anger we feel at the perceived accusations that it's all our fault, and get down to the responsibility of a) fixing what can be fixed, and b) preparing for what can't. Human activities are primarily responsible for the unprecedented and unnatural changes in the Earth's climate over the past hundred or so years, almost perfectly coinciding with the Industrial Revolution. The "debate" is over, and would have been long ago, were it not for extraordinary efforts on the part of corporate- and conservative thinktank-funded professional deniers (see DeSmogBlog and ExxonSecrets). A great deal of the damage done cannot be repaired, and we will all be affected by it to some degree. We may be more likely to contract warm-area diseases, we may no longer be able to obtain the food we're used to eating, and residents of coastal areas (like me) might lose their homes. These are frightening prospects, to be sure, and there are many more, yet not one of them is worthy of panic or resignation. We must adapt, collectively as much as possible, but individually as well.

I don't doubt someone's going to come along and proclaim I'm simply splitting hairs regarding the use of responsibility vs. fault, and they'd be technically correct. However, I'm starting to learn the importance of language, linguistics, and framing in a discussion. Books such as Don't Think of an Elephant! and websites like Frameshop and Rockridge Institute have taught me a great deal about how communication, and even a single word, can make or break an argument. (FYI, a 100% free copy of RI's latest book Thinking Points can be freely downloaded from the site. Oh, and it's free. Did I mention it's free?) The political dialogue of the last several years has proven that how you say something is at least as important as what you say, and often more so. It's how lies such as Al Gore claiming to have invented the Internet became "common knowledge."

Revisiting that dinner party, it sadly ended on a low note, and you're sure your friend is angry at you, no matter what she says. Then, a few months later, you get an invitation from her to another gathering, along with abundant food and wine, and yes, even the heirloom china. Because your host knows that one unintended screwup on your part certainly doesn't mean the end of your friendship. She's willing to trust you to use her good wine glasses again; by the same token, you respect her enough to ask for water in an unbreakable cup. Likewise, a lot of unintended screwups borne of lack of knowledge and awareness on the part of humankind doesn't mean the end of Mother Earth. The party is far from over; what we need now is simply more responsible partying.

We can't fix a lot of the damage we've done, but from this point on, we can, as adults, take responsible action to minimize and even negate possible future damage. But let this be the demarcation line: from here on, if we don't take responsibility, then it will be our fault.

Coming soon: Part 2 - Ch-ch-ch-changes... turn and face the strain (h/t David Bowie), in which I will share the actions I'm taking, the actions I still need to take, and what all of us can start doing or do better.

But how is he playing in Peoria?

2007-02-04T18:19:00.000-05:00

Hint: Quack, limp.

Why you shouldn't believe headlines like

2007-01-30T12:31:00.000-05:00

Democrats unveil massive spending bill, no matter how badly you might want to. ;-)

Rightist D'Souza: They hate us for our freedom, and right in doing so.

2007-01-18T08:33:00.000-05:00

Dinesh D'Souza calls out FDR for his complicity in the rise of Islamofascism.

If this joker knew his history, as all conservatives are supposed to, he'd know that Winston Churchill worked out the ratios of control in Eastern Europe on a cocktail napkin with Stalin himself. Further documentation here.

No criticism of Churchill intended. FDR was apparently enraged by the results of the Anglo-Soviet meeting, but his hands were tied by the necessities of the alliance, and to be fair, Churchill felt that his were, too.

What I do criticize is the right's tendency to idealize and idolize "their" heroes and demonize their counterparts, whom they style as enemies. The trouble with the American liberal is that he has very few intellectuals (most of them are purged as leftists and the remainder are all too often cryptocons). The trouble with the American conservative is that he has many intellectuals and none of them read a god-damned thing. This shit about giving away Eastern Europe has been a rightist line for sixty fucking years. You may have heard its more popular covers, giving away China and giving away Vietnam. And Churchill's explanation of the negotiations for the post-war world has been around for fifty years. I know we joke about rightists living in the 50s, but I think that may give them too much credit. I wish we still had Eisenhower Republicans.

Thoughts on the minimum wage increase

2007-01-13T11:55:00.000-05:00

Being the bleeding heart dirty fucking hippy (BHDFH) I am, it should come as no surprise that I strongly support the long-overdue minimum wage increase passed by the House on Wednesday. The legislation now faces a tight Senate vote and a possible Presidential veto unless amendments are attached to lessen the added burden on small businesses, which tend to have larger percentages of low-wage employees. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has already signalled he and the Senate Democrats would be amenable to such changes. (Note to Mitch McConnell: this is what bipartisan cooperation looks like.)

In addition to being a BHDFH, however, I'm also a realist and a pragmatist. I'm well aware that a minimum wage increase is not going to solve the country's problems as far as income disparity and poverty are concerned. In fact, it could create some unintended problems for the very people it's supposed to help, as shown in this fascinating WaPo article, Life at $7.25 an hour. But overall, the increase is a good start. The current MW of $5.15 an hour, adjusted for inflation, is at its lowest level since 1955. By way of comparison, if MW increases had risen by the same factor as executive salaries, it would be over $23 by now. A small, if good, start.

But what of the impact on small businesses that the Republicans are so concerned about? I happened to catch a panel of small business owners speaking on just that topic before a Congressional committee, arguing in favor of tax incentives to offset the wage increase. They discussed how the increase would require them to cut overall employee hours rather than raise prices on their products, because they already lose too much business to big corporate retailers who benefit from volume buying. Their share of employee taxes and health insurance would increase as well. They gave other reasons they felt they deserved tax breaks, such as the fact that small businesses usually lease the buildings they're in while the big retailers own theirs, putting the former at the mercy of the landlord who raises rent, won't make repairs and improvements, etc. (On a somewhat humorous note, one of the businessmen ran a store called "Bob's Soda and Pet City" or something like that. I'm quite curious as to their shelving and product placement. But I digress.)

While I'm sympathetic to these problems, it's important to understand that not all of them are really related to the minimum wage. Employee wage, tax, and insurance increases, sure. But if I correctly recall my tax studies and years of experience in corporate accounting, wages and insurance are deductible expenses, so they're removed before income tax is calculated. In addition, we have an even more compelling argument in favor of a single-payer national health plan - to take that burden off small and big business alike.

The other issues the panel brought up really don't have anything to do with employee salaries; rather, they're the unfortunate results of our corporate-influenced government favoring megacorporations over small scale entrepreneurs. To that end, I agree with incentives for small businesses in order to level the playing field and give consumers more choices than just a Wal-Mart at one end of town and a Target at the other. Ideally, such incentives should not be attached to a minimum wage bill, as the two issues don't relate to each other. But politics being what it is, one must sometimes make concessions to get what one really wants, and in my opinion the Democrats are wise to allow the small business concessions in order for the minimum wage to pass. The net effect is positive.

As far as cutting employee hours to avoid raising prices (and theoretically losing business because of it), I find that argument specious. All kinds of things affect the price of consumer goods, but we don't hear too much whining that the government should do something about the increasing cost of fuel, which in turn raises the price of grapes imported from Chile. Grocery stores just raise the price of grapes, and hardly anyone notices. Inflation in general causes prices to increase, and most retailers deal with it by small increases on various goods to compensate. On top of that, from the way some of these businessmen talked, you'd think that they were faced with the horrible disaster of drastically increasing the pay for every single employee they had. All I could think was, dude, if you have never given your employees wage increases and they are all currently making only $5.15 an hour, you are just one shitty mofo boss.

The sad fact remains, though, that human capital is typically the first to be threatened as the sacrificial lamb when businesses are faced with legislation that could impact their bottom line. It's just one of many swords of Damocles the powerful use to keep things going their way. I find this depressingly ironic, since I usually choose to patronize a small business where I know there are more staff people available to assist me and the building isn't so huge that I'd spend far more time finding the stuff I need than it took to get to the store and back, even if it means I pay a buck or two more for merchandise. I fear I'm in the minority, though, since I don't allow "always low prices" to be the sole arbiter of my purchasing decisions. There are some things worth paying extra for: the time I save by shopping at a small store and not waiting in long checkout lines; the gas I save by going to a place closer to home (especially when I can walk or bike); the expertise and assistance I can access by being easily able to find a salesperson. Rather than considering a small business "more expensive" because its prices have to reflect these things, I consider them essential benefits which are worth my money. It would behoove us all to consider our shopping habits in this light.

Dear Republican minority: STFU

2007-01-13T11:38:00.000-05:00

A week ago Thursday, the opening day of the 110th Congress, I watched new Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell speaking on C-Span. As is typical of opening session speeches, the new leaders and Congresspersons present an idealized vision of how they will behave in their respective posts, how they will serve the American people, what legislation they will try to pass or prevent from passing, and so on. We all know it never works out that way, but it's fun to pretend for a while. McConnell, for his part, said he will never support tax increases on the middle class or small businesses. Hey, kewl, because the Democrats don't want to raise taxes on the middle class or small business anyway, contrary to popular belief. He then went on to say that he and his GOP colleagues will engage in bipartisanship, cooperation, and civility, while never straying from their conservative principles. And I'm almost sure I detected a hint of a suppressed smile flicker across his face, as he knows as well as his colleagues do that there can be no bipartisanship, cooperation, or civility when the present-day GOP sticks to its "principles."

"A presidency of Cliff Notes"

2007-01-12T08:30:00.000-05:00

Special Comment on the President's Address by Keith Olbermann.

Sir, you do Edward R. Murrow proud.

Iraqi Logic

2007-01-12T08:06:00.000-05:00

We're not willing to colonize Iraq, sending vast portions of our population to dwell there permanently.

We're not willing to sack it completely or kill half the population.

And the President isn't willing to leave.

I hate to be brutal about it, but those are our options. You see why so many of us are "defeatists"? We're the same kind of defeatists that oversaw the evacuation of Dunkirk. No soldier wants to admit defeat, but if this is all part of a larger conflict, why break our army on a sideshow? I don't need to remind you what kinds of commanders have wasted strategic strength on symbolic victory.

Insight

2007-01-09T15:06:00.000-05:00

It may seem rude to dismiss a large group of people, but today I have seen undeniable proof that anyone who takes Sean Hannity seriously is insane.

Is this in jest? How could anyone put Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad next to Barbra Streisand and Michael Moore?

Clumsy Historical Comparison

2007-01-08T09:46:00.000-05:00

Today I indulge a bit of rightist association. Because no-one can be bad in their own right, let's assume that Saddam was actually a Hitler.

If this were true, how do you think a Kurd would feel right now? Or a swamp Arab, or an Iranian?

I suppose they'd feel just like a Jew, a Pole, or a Russian would feel if Hitler had been tried, convicted, and executed, not for the Holocaust or the Eastern Front prisons or the eugenics programs but for, say, the purge of the SA during the so-called Night of Long Knives.

Now, functionally, you'd have what you wanted, perhaps. But ask yourself if it wouldn't sting to see such a villain killed for lesser crimes and the more significant charges dropped.

Again, I don't make the comparison. I like to judge each mass-murderer in his or her own right without resorting to rhetorical associations. But I'm willing to take such statements to their logical conclusions.

Update-- Actually, it seems that the Iranians are quite pleased with the results, and feel that Maliki has proven himself quite willing and able to serve their interests. Well, I'm sure that this will strengthen ties between the Shiites and the occupying powers.

Introduction

2007-01-06T14:28:00.000-05:00

And before this goes much farther, I need to introduce myself.

Believe it or not, this weblog has not been hijacked. I have been invited by my good friend Patty, the mistress of this site, to provide some of my own politically-themed gripes and bitches.

You will note that I am nowhere near as familiar with domestic and local politics as she is. That's fine--having distinct perspectives, we will step on each others' toes less often and the end result will be less repetitive and more entertaining.

Anything else? I can't think of much else that's necessary. I look forward to enjoying the freedom that using a friend's page promises.

Historical Entertainment

2007-01-06T13:13:00.000-05:00

Band of Brothers is on today. I very sorely want to watch that series, but I can't today.

First, I'm sick. Second, it's got commercials, since it's on the History Channel. And third, every five minutes I want to scream "How can rightists think we're in this kind of war?!"

I'm not going to go into all the ways that World War Two can't be reduced into some kind of model for the "War on Terror." I'm just going to grumble because, as a history geek, I'm sick of people trying to make the past fit their modern assumptions. Of course, this is bad when we project feminism and civil rights consciousness into the past, but when VD Hanson and the armchair historians of half-remembered times want to make Ancient Greece or the Roman Empire or the greatest conflict of human history into nothing more than justifications for their failed policies, it's all fair, right?

Turnabout

2007-01-04T09:03:00.000-05:00

You don't have to be a partisan fanatic to worry about the level of political discourse in this country. I know a lot of people who can't stand mudflinging.

Mudflinging, sure, but if you object to constructive conflict and even obstruction of plans you think disastrous, then you need to stop paying attention to politics. Those who have no stomach for conversational conflict should not be allowed to decide on matters of governance, let alone war.

Already the President has dusted off bipartisanship (how convenient for him) and the Republicans have started to bemoan the coming Democratic purges. They've wanted to be the minority for so long that I'm happy the Democrats gave them the chance.

Me? I'm skeptical. I don't think the Dems have much spirit. But they ought to be a bunch of bastards, as long as they stay cold about it.

If America had wanted a Congress to approve every order coming out of the White House, they might have re-affirmed the party of the President. Let's not forget that.

Next time anyone talks about "decency" in this arena, or says that conservatism is still on the march, because only "centrist" Democrats got elected, remind them. If America thought we were on the right track, if America wanted more Congressional roll-overs, they would not have supported the opposition.

America's 60 Year Policy of Prolonging Civil War

2007-01-04T08:29:00.000-05:00

Come on, guys. Provoking one civil war (okay, I'll be fair--triggering one civil war) isn't enough for you? Now the US Navy has imposed at least a partial blockade of the Somalian coast to prevent members of the Union of Islamic Courts faction from escaping.

Sean McCormack of the State Department had this to say:
"We would be concerned that no leaders who were members of the Islamic Courts which have ties to terrorist organisations including al-Qaeda are allowed to flee and leave Somalia."

Now there's a lot of ambiguity in that statement, actually, but I think it does show that we have almost completely adopted the Ethiopian line in this war. We won't actually declare war, but we will put Americans at risk in a conflict that we haven't voted to enter. Unofficial war is so thrilling, in any case.

I have no great love for the UIC, but I will say this--they united Somalia when few have been able to. As far as the terrorist line, I'll admit that there is a jihad going on, right now, in Somalia. Or one was going on, before the Ethiopians won. But jihad is not always terror and not all mujahideen are terrorists. When a Muslim country is invaded by a Christian one--and Ethiopia's secularism doesn't have the history of America's--a jihad will be declared, as sure as Christians would invoke and have invoked God in kicking invaders out of their own countries.

But I don't really care about rhetoric. Whatever gets the people to join the army, right?

The fact is that America's fucking up in Iraq, we couldn't help in Somalia without leveling the place, we've got trouble with Iran, an increasingly emboldened North Korea, and we've decided to take sides in a conflict that isn't our own and which doesn't much concern us. And anyone who sees this as containment embodies, more than they know, the teaching about generals preparing for the last war. Islamic fanaticism, like all terror today, can't be contained without spreading through civilian populations more quickly than before. And terrorism suffers when political stability is achieved--even under bad governments.

At this point, Somalia is lost to the UIC. Where would these people go? Perhaps back to the countries who funded and assisted them, where they may raise a little trouble. But nothing is really going to change, because the Islamist exiles won't go where there aren't likeminded elites with a lot of cash. And as far as Somalia, well, that's a country full of Muslims who have very little, or nothing, and the movement will start with or without the fighters and leaders of the UIC. So why is our navy out, again?

Oh yeah--probably to make a show to our pundits stateside and also to send another fuck-you to the conservative Islamic world with very little to show for it. We won't pay for it soon.

Oh, if only Sharif Ahmed was the leader of the Republic of China. Maybe we could set him up on a nice disputed island and arm him, but not enough to actually do any good. Has this ever been a functional strategy?

God's prognostication skills leave something to be desired

2007-01-03T15:23:00.000-05:00

I should have known better than to click on a link titled Pat Robertson: God told me of 'mass killing' in 2007 at 7:30 this morning. Nothing like seeing that squinty-eyed son of a bitch's face to make me throw up a little in my soul (h/t debutaunt for that highly useful phrase). Seems the ever-so-helpful Jehovah told Pat the War on Terrah would hit home again this year:

Evangelical broadcaster Pat Robertson said Tuesday that God has told him that a terrorist attack on the United States would cause a "mass killing" late in 2007.

"I'm not necessarily saying it's going to be nuclear," he said during his news-and-talk television show "The 700 Club" on the Christian Broadcasting Network.

"The Lord didn't say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that."

So, like, didn't Pat bother asking God for maybe a couple hints as to where this attack will occur? How about a more specific date? Or maybe God did share this potentially life-saving info with Pat but he doesn't want to reveal it to the rest of us heathen rabble; he'll just round up his Left Behind buddies and his closet queer compatriots and hide out in his humanitarian diamond mine until the radiation falls to a safe level.

And another thing - if the Lord didn't specifically say it would be a nuclear attack, who does Pat think he is putting words in the Almighty's mouth? Isn't that just a wee bit arrogant? Last I heard, arrogance was sinful or something. At the very least, it reveals what a sphincter the guy is.

As is typical of people like Robertson, he just doesn't know when to STFU:

In 2005, Robertson predicted that Bush would have victory after victory in his second term. He said Social Security reform proposals would be approved and Bush would nominate conservative judges to federal courts.

Lawmakers confirmed Bush's 2005 nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. But the president's Social Security initiative was stalled.

"I have a relatively good track record," he said. "Sometimes I miss."

Hang on - I thought Pat said God told him all this stuff. So either Pat's entirely full of shit (likely), lying out his ass (also likely), batshit insane (inarguably), or the Almighty just ain't quite so infallible. Which is it, Pat? Will you protect the divine reputation of your Supreme Creator by admitting you're not quite on the level? That's gotta be a tough choice.

In May, Robertson said God told him that storms and possibly a tsunami were to crash into America's coastline in 2006.

Even though the U.S. was not hit with a tsunami, Robertson on Tuesday cited last spring's heavy rains and flooding in New England as partly fulfilling the prediction.

That puts God's and/or Pat Robertson's prognostication skills on par with those of the Farmer's Almanac - "It will snow in the Northeast in January." Worse, actually, if one is willing to take the Almanac's claim of 80% accuracy in long-term weather forecasting at face value.

I could predict that this weekend, I'll be treated to a fancy dinner and a night of passionate lovemaking, but what will probably happen is I'll stay home, eat a DiGiornio's pizza, then masturbate until I fall asleep. But since either way I'll have a full belly and a sloppy crotch, the end result will be the same. Thus, I can say with as much confidence as Pat Robertson that my prediction was at least partly fulfilled.

Tony Snow wonders about the "concern about the last two minutes of Saddam Hussein's life..."

2007-01-03T15:09:00.000-05:00

Poor Tony Snow. It's his job to spin away any worry on the domestic scene, and so he gives a curt dismissal of all that talk about Saddam's execution. Of course, those of us talking about the chanting of Moqtada al-Sadr's name leading up the execution of Saddam don't actually mourn the fallen Ba'athist.

I don't know about you, but turning the execution into a Shiite Arab victory may be seen as divisive. Nevermind that, even when uttered by a dictator, interruption of a prayer may seem impious to a former seat of the caliphate.

In other news, the Iraqi government has learned well--wrap your brain around this quote:

"Whoever leaked this video meant to harm national reconciliation and drive a wedge between Shi'ites and Sunnis."

A birthday gift for Howard Dean

2006-11-11T09:48:00.001-05:00

For the last couple days several ideas have been bantered about on DailyKos (and elsewhere, no doubt) regarding how to thank Howard Dean and the new, improved DNC for putting the 50 State Strategy into motion, and showing earlier-than-expected success with the 2006 election victories. Then, of course, today we learn James Carville thinks Dean has done such a great job that he should be replaced by Harold Ford. Many members of the D.C. Dem establishment just don't like Dean and seem to really get cheesed off by his success, as well as how much the rank-and-file Democrats love him. So, in order to say "Thanks, Howard!" and "F.U., James!" simultaneously, because we are efficient like that, we're organizing a birthday gift to Dr. Dean in the form of massive donations to the DNC to coincide with his birthday next Friday, November 17. Think in terms of the roses we inundated Senator Boxer with on Valentine's Day 2005.

First, I must stress that none of these ideas were mine. But so many are flying around that I thought it would be helpful to try to coordinate them somewhat. I certainly don't expect that everyone will follow them to the letter, that's just asking too much!

So far, the only thing everyone seems agreed upon is that we want to make the DNC contributions in time for Dr. Dean's birthday. The amounts and methods of delivery just differ. So far, proposed methods are:

Send birthday cards to Dean at the DNC office by snail mail, with check or money order enclosed;
Donate via The Bat, which someone started on their own and which has already raised over $4,000;
Donate via the "We've Got Howard's Back" ActBlue page.

Proposed amounts are:

$20.06, to signify the successes of this week;
$20.08, in anticipation of even greater success in 2008;
Any amount with 50 cents tacked on, in honor of the great 50 State Strategy

Just my .02: my personal favorite is a birthday card - made from recycled paper of course ;-) - with a check/MO donation. The beauty of this is it will make a big visual impact, good for PR purposes. However, this would rule out being able to put it on a credit card, and we couldn't time it so that all the cards got there right on his birthday, both of which could be accomplished via Web donations. However, I think if we just start mailing them tomorrow and over the next few days, they'll arrive throughout the week, and that would be fine.

I also prefer just adding on 50 cents to any amount. This makes it appealing to those who are tapped out from the past election cycle, but can still scrape up 5 or 10 bucks from someplace. If you can afford more, great - just add another .50 to it. And if you genuinely can't afford anything, just send a thank you note! I'm sure it will be appreciated just as much.

Honestly, though, as long as it pretty much coincides with Dr. Dean's birthday, I don't think the delivery method or amount matter a great deal. Naturally, the more we all try to do the same thing, the bigger impact it will have, but I don't think it's worth bickering over or going into major planning. (Mainly because I'm lazy, disorganized, and don't really feel like doing it. Heh.)

I'll update by Sunday evening with the final plan. I hope you all will consider participating! Dr. Dean has done a terrific job but just doesn't get the credit he deserves from his peers.

A thousand d'ohs!

2006-11-08T11:03:00.000-05:00

It seems I had comments moderated but I didn't get notified by the Blogger website like I thought I would, so I only just now found and released them into the wild. Deep thanks to all of you who commented, and I'm very sorry that I didn't check sooner. My apologies to anyone who thought I was ignoring their comments - that wasn't the case at all. I just haven't learned all the housekeeping details about Blogger yet.

Oh yeah - DEMOCRATZ IN DA HOUSE!!!

FL-24: Dubya's backyard newspaper publishes feature on Clint Curtis

2006-10-28T14:10:00.000-04:00

This is an amusing little story. The Lone Star Iconoclast, a weekly independent paper in George Bush's hideout of Crawford, Texas, has published an interview with FL-24 candidate Clint Curtis. The article covers Clint's past history with the mesmerizingly corrupt Tom Feeney (R-Abramoff) when they were both associated with Yang Enterprises, Clint's political challenge to Feeney, the Vote Now 2006 parallel election site, and Clint's great progressive stands on other issues. It's a positive article that showcases Clint's integrity and desire for real change in Congress. Please read!

Curing Corruption: Whistleblower-Turned-Candidate Fights For Office

What's especially great is that this appeared practically in Bush's backyard. I won't call Crawford his hometown, as we all know Du(m)bya is no Texan. Considering the man's utter disdain for the principles on which this country was founded, I'm hesitant to even call him an American. And Feeney, you will recall, as Speaker of the Florida House promised to deliver Florida to Bush in the 2000 election debacle.

At any rate, I suspect there's little chance the pResident will read this article. First of all, the word "Iconoclast" will almost certainly confuse and frighten him, as it's at least two syllables longer than his maximum word comprehension. (On the other hand, he'll probably find the "con" part rather appealing.) Second, it's from an indie publisher, and we all know how independence and freedom have a well-known liberal bias. (With all due respect to Stephen Colbert.)

FL-24: Zogby poll shows Curtis/Feeney almost even!

2006-10-26T10:05:00.000-04:00

As I've blogged and talked to others about my candidate, Clint Curtis, I've been very upfront about the race for FL-24 being something of a longshot. Sure, Tom Feeney's the only UNindicted member of the infamous Scotland golfing trip paid for by Jack Abramoff; sure, he's a close friend of the Bushies as well as Mark Foley; sure, he was selected by CREW as one of their 20 most corrupt Congresspersons. But let's face it: Clint has almost no name recognition in the district, a comparatively miniscule campaign warchest, and little political experience. What chance does he really have?

Well, I've never been happier to admit I was wrong. Because the first official poll (Zogby) shows Clint IN ALMOST A DEAD HEAT WITH FEENEY!

The poll of 402 likely voters in the 24th district showed:
Feeney 45%
Curtis 43
Other 2
Not sure 10
MOE +/-5
The race for the U.S. House of Representatives in Florida's 24th District is a virtual toss-up. Incumbent Tom Feeney holds the slimmest of leads over challenger Clint Curtis, 45% to 43%, with one in ten (10%) undecided.
Each candidate leads big among his own party's members, but Curtis leads among independents, 48% to 37%.

You can read more at Clint's campaign blog, the BradBlog, and Velvet Revolution, the election integrity group which commissioned the Zogby poll.

This is very exciting and surprising news. It means there is a realistic chance Clint can beat Feeney. And the first order of business on Clint's Commitment List is to make a paper ballot the vote of record once again.

If you live in FL-24, please support Clint.

[Disclosure: I'm a volunteer for the Clint Curtis for Congress campaign.]

Worried about "skewed" election results?

2006-10-24T09:48:00.000-04:00

Judging by clammyc's Recommended diary on Daily Kos, there is great concern regarding the possibility of Election Day shenanigans perpetrated by Republicans, from voting machine irregularities to voter disenfranchisement and everything in between. Clint Curtis, candidate for FL-24, has come up with a solution to address the former:

Vote Now 2006 is an independent website for recording one's vote. Any candidate or politician can sign up to use it, as well as any registered voter. It's simple - just click on the "Vote Now" icon, select your state, enter your voter info, and look for your candidate. If your candidate isn't listed, suggest to him/her that they register.

While I'm not privy to the technical workings of the program (Clint's the computer genius, not me), I would best describe it as an electronic exit poll. It gives the candidate a decent idea of how many people voted for him or her. Obviously, it's not legally binding, but it will provide a general idea of how the votes shake out. If the Vote Now 2006 votes tally with the recorded vote, then the candidate can probably assume the election was legit. But if Vote Now 2006 shows a substantial difference, it will give cause to look into the official votes further and possibly challenge them.

Like I said, anyone from any party can use it. If you have friends and family who don't have computers, you can enter their vote for them. (Truthfully, of course!)

Even Italy has signed on to Vote Now 2006, and considering how crazy their elections get, they must think it's worth a shot! LOL.

If you have questions about how it works, please post them in comments and I'll be happy to forward them to Clint and post back here with his responses.

[Full disclosure: I'm a volunteer for Clint Curtis for Congress.]

FL-24: Stunning NEW election integrity video featuring Clint Curtis!

2006-10-18T20:36:00.000-04:00

I grew up thinking you're supposed to do the right thing. And that's what I do. I'll do it until someone makes it so that I can't. - Clint Curtis

I don't know about you, but a guy who says stuff like that is the kind of guy I want to represent me in Congress.

Brad Friedman of Bradblog has just posted about a new documentary called Eternal Vigilance: The Fight to Save Our Election System. Clint Curtis, candidate for FL-24, is featured heavily, and Brad also has a several-minute-long clip from the film.

This isn't the same as the YouTube clip of Clint's whistleblower testimony before Congress that surfaced recently and was ably diaried by katier over at DailyKos. The new video clip has a bit of the testimony, but even better, we get to hear Clint in his own words. If you've never met Clint or seen interviews, you can't miss this. His integrity shines through, and I think you'll be convinced, if you weren't already, that he deserves as much help as we can give him.

Unfortunately I don't have a clue how to embed video into this diary entry, so you will have to click on the link in Brad's article. But the link's hard to miss. The clip is about 8 minutes long and is definitely worth the time. Besides, I really encourage you to read Brad's complete post. He's been on top of Clint's story, along with plenty of other vote fraud stories, for a couple years now. Feel free to forward my diary or Brad's post to everyone you think needs to know.

Finally, here's a fun little story, also from BradBlog, on more tomfoolery from Tom Feeney (R-Abramoff). It seems Tom's campaign launched a smear site about Clint, but it didn't quite work out the way he'd hoped, for reasons including:

- Using hit song "Crazy", by Gnarls Barkley, without permission on the smear website. Feeney removed it after complaints from the record publisher.

- Linking to a "How to Make a Tinfoil Hat" website. This prompted the owner to redirect his page -- when clicked from Feeney's smearsite -- to an ethics watchdog webpage detailing Feeney's lobbyist- and foreign agent-funded vacations in violation of Congressional ethics rules. (Feeney is the only, as-yet-unindicted Congressman remaining in the House to have traveled with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff to a posh golf resort in Scotland.) Feeney removed the link a day or two later.

- Failing to include "Paid for by Tom Feeney" on the smear blogsite. He recently added the disclaimer after a complaint was filed with authorities.

Feeney was supposed to have this election in the bag. Makes you wonder why he's wasting his resources to try to smear Clint. Luckily, his lame attempts at swiftboating Mr. Curtis have instead turned out to have great entertainment value!

Again, I encourage you to contribute to Clint if possible, even if it's only $5. Clint's campaign is almost entirely citizen-funded. If he's got megabucks Feeney this nervous so far, imagine what he can do with a little more.

[Full disclosure: I'm a volunteer for Clint Curtis for Congress.]
[X-posted to DailyKos]

copyright 10-18-06 miz p

FL-24: A Night at the Movies

2006-10-16T22:22:00.000-04:00

Tonight was the Daytona premiere of the finalized version of "Truth in the Booth: The Clint Curtis Story." In it, Clint details for Brad Friedman of Bradblog the whole sordid story of Tom Feeney (R-Abramoff) and Yang Enterprises (YEI), and how Clint was hired by Feeney to write vote-flipping software for electronic voting machines. Clint became a whistleblower who testified before Congress and also passed a polygraph test on this grave matter.

Brad Friedman interviewed Mavis Georgalis for the documentary, a 15-year employee of the Florida Department of Transportation who was fired the same day as Clint for also blowing the whistle on YEI's nefarious activities.

And there is the sad tale of Raymond Lemme, an FDOT inspector who was investigating Clint's allegations on his own time. This excerpt from Bradblog explains what happened next:

In his 2004 affidavit, Curtis describes a mid-June 2003 meeting with Lemme in which he claims that Lemme told him he "had tracked the corruption 'all the way to the top' and that the story would break in the next few weeks and I would be satisfied with the results."
On July 1, 2003 -- just two weeks later -- Raymond Camillo Lemme was found dead in a bathtub, with his arm slashed twice with a razor blade near the left elbow in Room #132 of the Knights Inn motel in Valdosta, Georgia; a border-town some 80 miles from Tallahassee, Florida where Lemme lived and worked....

At the time of this incident, Lemme's only child was engaged to be married just three months later in September. Curtis has told us that Lemme frequently talked about his daughter with him. "He would always discuss his daughter and had talked about her upcoming wedding," he told us. Yet Lemme's only daughter -- his only child -- is not mentioned by name in the unsigned [suicide] note. A family member of Lemme's has told us that the family generally feels that the handwriting on the note seemed to belong to Lemme....

When we first asked Curtis what Lemme might have been doing in Valdosta in the first place, Curtis explained to the The BRAD BLOG in one of our initial interviews that "There are no autopsy laws in Georgia. Had he committed suicide in Florida, there would have been a mandatory autopsy."

A host of other vote integrity champions weigh in on the DVD as well. There is so much to Clint's story that I really can't do it justice, so I'll refer you to Bradblog, which provides an excellent summary for those short on time, as well as extensive documentation for those who wish to delve deeper into the issue.

The showing was held at Brooklyn Ice Cafe in Port Orange, Florida. It's a great little place with wireless access, occasional musicians, and really delicious food and Italian ices! :-) The owner is a staunch Democrat and big supporter of Clint. He gave everyone 10% off their order and donated it right back to the campaign.

After the showing, Clint took questions from the audience. For the majority, it was the first time hearing the story that many of us have been familiar with for at least a year now. People were shocked at the unethical behavior of Feeney and YEI and most came away more disgusted with Feeney than before, if that's even possible.

My question to Clint was, "Has Tom Feeney responded to any of your requests for a public debate?" Clint said his campaign staff thought they'd finally arranged a debate at a local university, until Feeney backed out because Clint wouldn't agree to one of his terms. And that was...?

Feeney would debate Clint as long as they didn't discuss any issues.

What an idiot. What the hell else do candidates talk about in a debate? My guess is Feeney hoped to make Clint focus only on his whistleblower claims in the hopes of making Clint look crazy. Well, I think I know Clint well enough by now to say that Clint would have been glad to publicly discuss Feeney's hiring of Yang Enterprises to write vote-rigging software intended solely for the purpose of flipping election results. AND, Clint would have debated on the issues as well.

Finally, Clint would no doubt have asked Feeney the same thing all of us want to: Why won't you take the test, Tom?

Please donate: Clint Curtis for Congress

Make sure your vote counts: VoteNow2006

[Disclosure: I am a volunteer for the Clint Curtis for Congress campaign.]
Crossposted to Daily Kos

copyright 10-16-2006 miz p

"Worst Person in the World": Tom Feeney's (FL-24) Chief of Staff

2006-10-15T19:20:00.000-04:00

In what is practically an endorsement of FL-24 candidate Clint Curtis ;-) Keith Olbermann, host of MSNBC's Countdown, awarded the "Worst Person in the World" title to Jason Roe, Tom Feeney's (R-Abramoff) Chief of Staff. Roe's on loan to the Peter Raskam campaign, who's being challenged by Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran who lost both legs when a rocket-propelled grenade struck the cockpit of the Blackhawk helicopter she was piloting. Here's Keith:

But our winner--we need to clarify a previous worst. We reported that Illinois congressional candidate Peter Roskam had said his opponent Tammy Duckworth wanted to "cut and run from Iraq" even though she lost both her legs there while serving as a helicopter pilot. Jason Row [sic] from the Roskam campaign charged us with intellectual dishonesty because Roskam merely said that the Illinois sixth is "not a cut and run district."

Hey pal, this is about campaigning against a woman who has no legs because they were cut off while she served in Iraq and still being insensitive enough to use the phrase "cut and run." You leave the intellectual to us, we`ll leave the dishonest to you.

Peter Roskam and staffer, Jason Row, today`s "Worst Persons in the World."

Read additional dirt about Roe, and more good stuff on Clint, at Clint's blog.

Spin.com covers Clint Curtis

Spin.com happened to notice the YouTube video of Clint's whistleblower testimony making the rounds, and provides a nice writeup on it. A link to the video is embedded in the article.

Testimony from Vote Machine Whistleblower Surfaces

Clint's Upcoming Fundraisers and Appearances

Monday, Oct 16th, 6:30 p.m.
DOCUMENTARY SHOWING - Lite Fare and the Movie
10% off dinner for you goes to Clint!
"Truth in the Booth - THE CLINT CURTIS STORY"
Brooklyn Ice Café
4649 Clyde Morris Blvd
Port Orange, FL
386-322-3306
Fund Raiser Movie $10
RSVP marty@go-nci.com
954-732-1112

Saturday, October 21st, 2:00 PM
SHOOT FROM THE HIP
Dart Tournament joint fund raiser for the Candidates
Luck of the draw partners to compete. Come give it a throw!
Emerald Hen Pub, Sanford, FL
http://www.emeraldhenpub.com/

Saturday, October 21st, 5:00 p.m.
Brevard Democratic Party
Canteen at the VAC Warbird Museum
Titusville, FL
Cocktails, Meet and Greet 5:00
Dinner and Speakers 7:00
Tickets for this fund Raising Canteen are a donation of $50
A group of 8 family and friends can reserve a table for $300
Additional information call 321-433-8004 or online www.brevarddemocrats.org
http://www.vacwarbirds.org

These are only a few of Clint's events over the next week. To see his complete schedule, check out his campaign website calendar. He's a busy guy as you can see! If you can't attend the events but would like to help Clint, please
contribute.

[Full disclosure: I'm a volunteer for the Clint Curtis for Congress campaign.]

Those Whiny, Clueless Democrats

2006-10-14T14:52:00.000-04:00

All Democrats do is complain about Republicans.

I've grown weary of this oft-repeated mantra, especially when it comes from otherwise intelligent people who ought to know better. In case no one's noticed, the Democratic Party has been the minority party for several years now. As such, it's the responsibility, nay, the patriotic duty of the Dems to point out the mistakes of the GOP, just as it will be the duty of the Repubs to do the same once they're the minority party again. But in the interest of fairness, let's discuss a few of the more egregious examples of DWS (Democratic Whining Syndrome):

First up, we have the Democratic Party spending $45 million - 90% of its advertising budget - on attack ads against its opponents going into the final two months of the 2006 mid-term elections. Talk about pointless complaining.

Oops, sorry. That would be the Republican National Congressional Committee. My bad. I doubt the DNC has $50 million in its entire budget.

Well, the Dems sure are bitching up a storm about this whole Mark Foley sex scandal thing. Just look at the baseless tripe they're spewing!

Erm, sorry again. Turns out that was the Republicans too. But, hey, there's that one lone Democrat on the Page Board, Dale Kildee, whining because the Republican House leadership never told him about Foley's page fetish. Oh, grow up, Dale.

Here's one of my personal faves, an oldie but goodie from last year. It seems a few Dems on the House Judiciary Committee got all uptight about the Repubs rewriting some Dem-sponsored amendments to CIANA (the Child Interstate Abortion and Notification Act). Honestly, I'm sure all the well-meaning Repub committee members intended was to make the amendments clearer before they became a permanent part of the CIANA legislation, as we all know how bad Dems are at articulating ideas. Incidentally, none of the amendments in question passed, which at worst makes the Repubs guilty of wasting taxpayer money rewriting something that in no way affected the final piece of legislation. Bad GOoPers! A slap on the wrist for you!

In case no one can tell, I'm being sarcastic. These are just a few examples I could quickly pull out of my ass without having to stand up. I'm sure there are many more cases of similar, entirely justified complaints by Dems. On the other hand, it sure seems like the GOP might have a wee bit of a problem with talking shit about the opposition.

Democrats have no ideas.

Here's another load of crap I hear too often. Anyone who thinks the Democratic Party has no ideas need look no further than the Agenda on the DNC's website. What's that? You don't have the URL singed onto your brain like I do? Never fear - all you have to do is go to Google, put democratic party agenda in the search box, and click "Search." Voila! It's the very first result. Anyone who gives even the slightest, least smelly shit about elections ought to be researching both parties' platforms at this time, with less than four weeks until the election.

Speaking of bad Dem ideas, the main reason the DNC has so little cash on hand is because it's going out as fast as it comes in, in support of the 50 State Strategy. This is the brainchild of that raving lunatic Howard Dean, and its purpose is simple to the point of absurdity: challenge Republicans in every state, county, town, district, and precinct, period. Dean is rebuilding the party from the ground up and it's already shown success. The absurd part is that this is exactly what the Democratic Party failed to do over the past few decades, and it's one of the main reasons we've lost so much ground.

The 50 State Strategy is intended to be a long-term project; I doubt even Dean expected to see much payoff by the mid-terms. But then an unexpected thing happened: Mark Foley resigned. The immediate effect was to put what was considered a "safe" Republican seat, FL-16, into play as a top-tier race. And thankfully, there was Tim Mahoney, Democratic challenger, who suddenly found himself the beneficiary of a whole lot of national attention and contributions.

Then, increasing evidence began to appear that members of the Republican House leadership, particularly House Speaker Dennis Hastert (IL-14) and NRCC Chair Tom Reynolds (NY-26), were either actively involved in covering up Foley's page-persuing problem, or colossally stupid in ignoring it. So what? Well, both Reynolds and Hastert are up for reelection and are being challenged by Jack Davis and John Laesch, respectively.

An argument can be made that the Dems are just the lucky beneficiaries of recent GOP fuckups, and it's certainly true to an extent. But no one can argue the fact that the 50 State Strategy made it possible for those formerly safe GOP seats to have quite suddenly become more competitive by ensuring viable challengers were in place.

Challenge every Republican, everywhere. What a crappy plan. Why do Dems bother?

The most telling thing about people who parrot the above neoconservative talking points, and many more, is that they rarely have actual examples to back up their assertions. But this is a typical symptom of believing everything the corporate media reports. There is usually so much more behind the headlines, and it's easier to find than you might think.

copyright 10/14/2006

NRDC's Drive Beyond Oil Tour comes to Daytona Beach

2006-10-09T21:43:00.000-04:00

The Natural Resources Defense Council's Drive Beyond Oil tour is coming to my town of Daytona Beach on Tuesday. I was instrumental in getting the Tour to stop at my place of employment, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. And by "instrumental" I mean I got an email from the NRDC that the drivers were looking for places to stop in Daytona, so I called the NRDC contact and said, "Uh, you guys think maybe you wanna come by here?" To which they responded, "Uh, okay! Kewl!" Well, the conversation was somewhat more coherent than that, and the arrangements slightly more involved, but that was about the gist of it, really. Heh.

To explain the purpose of the tour, here's an excerpt from an NRDC press release from early August, just prior to the start of the first leg:

Amid sky-high energy prices and as the economic and environmental challenges of America's oil dependence are becoming increasingly clear, a national conservation group is hitting the road to showcase the cleaner, faster and cheaper path toward energy security.
Starting Sunday, four representatives of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) will embark on the "Drive Beyond Oil Tour," cruising across nine states in a Ford Escape Hybrid SUV, the first production hybrid SUV, and a 2006 Chevrolet Impala that can run on ethanol fuels as well as gasoline.
The crew will meet with local citizens, mayors, farmers, clean energy advocates and others to talk about better technology in our vehicles, clean renewable energy sources like fuels made from home-grown crops and wind and solar energy. Together, these alternatives will create new jobs, reduce global warming pollution, and end our dependence on oil from the Middle East and other politically volatile regions of the world.

Read the full press release, and come along for the ride on the tour's blog.

In order for me to get approval for the Tour to stop at the campus, I had to get an academic department or club to sponsor it. The campus chapter of the Society of Automotive Engineers seemed like the logical choice, so I contacted them. They were very interested, and for good reason - our students are currently building a Formula hybrid race car! Our kids will no doubt wow the NRDC's drivers with their mad engineering skillz.

I'm very excited about this, which should be evident by my use of five, count 'em, five exclamation points thus far. (I generally try to avoid exciting punctuation.) First, it's great that the people involved on campus were so interested, especially since there's a real academic connection. Second, anything that gets attention to any resources that can help reduce our dependence on foreign oil is a good thing.

But frankly, I must admit the main reason I'm excited is a selfish one; it's that this all has, so far, come together relatively easily. Granted, it's not a huge event requiring facility rentals, food service, money collection, etc. It's simply that I saw this opportunity and jumped on it, and so far at least, it's working out well.

And I don't think I would have had the confidence or even the desire to do so if it weren't for the netroots. When I first started reading progressive blogs regularly, I witnessed people doing huge, mindblowing activist things I thought I could never do. But after many months of reading, I realized most people aren't spending every waking hour involved in activism. Instead, they're doing little things like writing letters to the editor, sending a little money to candidates, canvassing and phone banking, just whatever they can make time for. But the beauty is, it all adds up to big results. And then I realized, I can do this. :-)

So don't give up. Do what you can, even if it's just sending a few bucks to a local or national candidate you like or a cause you support. It matters.

[crossposted with some editing to Daily Kos]

FL-24: Clint Curtis statement on Mark Foley, and a question for Tom Feeney

2006-10-08T16:44:00.000-04:00

[Author's note: I've been writing DailyKos diaries on Clint Curtis for some time, but starting with this one will also cross-post them here.]

Florida Congressman Tom Feeney (R-Abramoff), who worked closely with freshly disgraced ex-Congressman Mark Foley (R-Rehab) on a number of issues, including legislation for the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, has not made any statement whatsoever on Foley's highly improper, unethical behavior in sexually persuing teenage House pages and the equally unethical coverup by the Republican House leadership. ("Republican leadership" - it doesn't get any more oxymoronic than that.) Clint Curtis, Democratic challenger to Feeney in House District FL-24, has issued a press release on the Foley-House page scandal, and puts a(nother) challenge to Tom.

Candidate Clint Curtis Calls on Deputy Whip Tom Feeney to Clarify Personal Knowledge of Rep. Foley's Sexual Overtures to Minors

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 4, 2006
Contact: Karyn Altman 305-672-7759

Clint Curtis, Democratic challenger to Rep. Tom Feeney in Florida's 24th Congressional District, today called on his opponent, a Deputy Whip in the GOP House leadership, to fully explain his involvement in the latest scandal embroiling the House Republicans. As reported by AP, the GOP House Leadership was informed of disgraced Rep. Mark Foley's (R-FL-16) abhorrent sexual predatory behavior with minors in the congressional page program nearly a year ago, yet apparently took no action until forced by public outcry last Friday.

As a member of the GOP leadership, Feeney worked closely with Foley as a fellow Deputy Majority Whip in the House, as a colleague in the Florida caucus, and on legislation for the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children. Like Mr. Foley, Mr. Feeney has often trumpeted his work to protect children against sexual predators. "If Mr. Feeney knew of and let continue Mr. Foleys sexual overtures to a 16 year old male high school student interning with the Congressman, his sincerity in protecting children is definitely in question."

"Feeney owes a full explanation to all Floridians in the 24th District and across the state -- about when he learned of Foley's predatory behavior and what actions, if any, he took to protect the kids in this matter. As part of the Republican leadership, he should be calling for legal and ethical accountability," said Curtis. "The voters of Florida need to know so they can make an informed decision about their leadership in Congress."

"The Republicans waited only until the issue was disclosed by the media to call for an investigation," Curtis continued. "Hastert claims that he was only aware of 'overly-friendly' emails, but if that is true, I find his judgment severely impaired that he did not look into this - that's a huge red flag when there are minor children involved." Did Feeney ignore the same red flags on behalf of his colleague?

New revelations indicate the GOP leadership was aware, as far back as 2001, that Foley had a "page problem", according to ABC News. The report also says that staffers had gone so far as to "warn" pages "to watch out for Foley" over the years.

Curtis charges that the GOP leadership "did nothing, rather than jeopardize what was considered a `safe' seat. They made a craven political calculation to protect fellow Republicans rather than protect the children that were entrusted to their care. They have once again put partisan politics above everything else -- even above the children that work with them. We can't trust them to protect our children, or our country."

Foley is the fourth Republican to resign from the House under an ethical cloud in the past year, joining indicted former Majority Leader Tom Delay of Texas, and soon-to-be-jailed Bob Ney of Ohio, who pled guilty in the ongoing influence-peddling investigation of Jack Abramoff. Mr. Feeney is the only remaining congressman not yet indicted, to have received a posh golf junket to Scotland which was paid for by convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Once again this year, Feeney has been listed as one of the "Most Corrupt Members of Congress" by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

Clint Curtis is the Democratic Candidate for Congress in Florida's 24th District. A computer programmer, election integrity advocate and whistleblower, Curtis has charged that his opponent Rep. Tom Feeney, among other well-documented misdeeds, asked him to create an electronic vote-rigging computer program while they both worked for the same computer firm in Oviedo, FL in 2000.

Come clean, Tom! Just tell us what you know about your friend and colleague Mark Foley. While you're at it, you can take Clint's polygraph challenge on the voting machine software rigging issue.

Clint could use your help! Please contribute.

[Full disclosure: I am a volunteer for the Clint Curtis for Congress campaign.]

If you're not reading Glenn Greenwald...

2006-10-06T22:27:00.000-04:00

you should be.

Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald: Does the Foley scandal prove the existence of a God?

Required Reading.

2006-10-04T18:40:00.000-04:00

This post will be a continually updated list of books that should be read by every progressive, liberal, and Democrat who wishes to get a handle on the insanity that is U.S. politics. Many of them also provide guidance on how to become politically active and keep from getting discouraged. Some I've read and can recommend personally; others I have not, but am familiar enough with the reputations of the authors (many of them progressive bloggers) that I have no qualms about listing them. This post will always be accessible via the link in the left-hand sidebar under "Reading Room." Suggestions are welcome! (FWIW, as many as possible are linked via Powell's Books, a great progressive-minded online book retailer. I encourage you to patronize Powell's whenever you buy books online. Please click through from my blog so I get teh monies!)

Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics / Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas-Zuniga
Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative / David Brock
Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy / Frederick Clarkson
Conservatives Without Conscience / John Dean
The United States of Wal-Mart / John Dicker
Why Americans Hate Politics / E. J. Dionne
Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit / Al Gore
An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It / Al Gore
How Would a Patriot Act? / Glenn Greenwald
The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophies of the 21st Century / James Howard Kunstler
Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate (A Progressive Guide to Action) / George Lakoff
The Republican War on Science / Chris Mooney
Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government - and How We Can Take it Back / David Sirota
God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It / Jim Wallis

Spacebawl One.

2006-10-01T23:50:00.000-04:00

I'm starting this weblog to avoid annoying the crap out of my few friends who are tired of all the political posts in my LiveJournal. LOL. I originally created a blog over a year ago, called Generation Unknown, with the intention of examining society from the point of view of a generation straddler - technically a baby boomer (born 1964), but definitely of the Gen X mindset - hence the blog's name. After some time, however, I really couldn't come up with anything worthwhile to say on the subject, and it didn't interest me nearly as much as I thought it would.

In the meantime, I became increasingly involved in politics. So I've resurrected this blog to focus on my political activities, concerns, rants, candidates and organizations I support, blogs I read, and suggestions for how my family and friends can get informed and get involved, if they so desire. And since I just discovered there's a musical group called "Generation Unknown," I decided to change my blog's name to avoid confusion. I picked "Spacebawl" because I live near the Space Coast and I complain a lot. ;-)

This is a partisan blog. I'm a registered Democrat and proud of it. In fact, I consider myself a Libertarian Democrat, as Markos Moulitsas-Zuniga of Daily Kos explained so well. I'm a liberal and progressive who, while fully cognizant of and horrified by this Republican Administration's attempts to force this country into a 21st century Dark Ages, has also been energized and made hopeful by the grassroots and netroots activism that's going on around us every day with little fanfare and a surprising amount of success. I want to work toward making America and the world a better place for every living thing on it. We all deserve better than what the neocon lunatics currently in power are doing to us.

My posts here will often be angry, usually preachy, sometimes insulting, frequently disgusted, on rare occasions humorous (the latter primarily because I don't have much of a sense of humor.) But they will never be hopeless. They are intended to get people to do something, anything, even if it seems like a waste of time. I will suggest you donate money to politicians, organizations, or causes. I will tell you what books to read and who you should vote for. Be offended if you want, tell me I'm full of shit. But for [Deity's] sake, do something. Don't like my causes? Research and support ones you DO like. Prefer a candidate or politician I hate? Tell me why. Just try to do it in a reasonably coherent manner, with some evidence and facts to back you up. Am I lacking evidence and facts? Call me out. We can all only benefit from the knowledge gained.

Some would say (and have said) I'm wasting my time on a lost cause. To those I say, either fight to save your country or get the hell out of our way. Pack your bags and toddle off to the airport, when your one-way ticket to any place you think is better than the U.S. is waiting. But do us all a favor - when we reset the U.S. on the correct path, when America is once again the shining beacon and land of hope it once was and is respected and admired by people the world over, don't bother coming back. You bailed when we needed you most.

copyright 10/01/06