politics – Page 6

The conscience of the race

An excerpt from The moment that put John Edwards back in the game:

Last night, while Barack Obama was going Wal-Mart on Hillary Clinton, and while Hillary was going Rezko on Obama, and while they were both looking for more ammunition to use in yet another personal attack, John Edwards did something extraordinary.

John Edwards stepped up and showed some leadership. He reminded his opponents that this campaign isn’t about their personal lives; it’s about the future of our country, and what we should do to make it a better place.

Edwards talked about the issues, and in the process he took a debate that was descending into meaninglessness and made it meaningful.

[…]

At the very least, voting for Edwards will help him stay in the race, not only keeping the race focused on issues, but also earning enough delegates to exert considerable sway over the the nomination process and allowing him to keep progressive issues at the center of the debate.

At best, he could win the nomination. Just because the pundits say it’s impossible doesn’t mean it can’t happen. There are still 47 states left to go.

You be the judge: who is exhibiting leadership? Watch:

If I hadn’t already canceled my cable TV subscription, learning about the media shenanigans described below would make me do it in a heartbeat. (And you should consider it too. Do these assholes deserve hundreds of your dollars every year? Believe me, after a short couple of weeks of withdrawal symptoms you’ll never want to go back.)

Also, if I weren’t already going to vote for John Edwards, the way corporate America is trying to shape my opinion would make me vote for him just for spite.

Please contribute whatever you can to the Edwards campaign on Friday, January 18th, when we’ll be trying to raise a record-breaking $7 million in one day.

Mainstream Media Continues Blackout of John Edwards

John Edwards was the Democratic Vice Presidential Nominee in 2004, a former United States Senator, an accomplished businessman, a great father and husband, and a very well credentialed candidate for President on paper. […]

But despite the apparent three way horserace, the Washington Corporate Media Cocktail Party Elitists has deliberately removed John Edwards from your TV screen for many months. And it happened again today when right wing CNN and ultra right wing Faux Noise showed clips of speeches from Clinton and Obama while not showing clips of speeches from Edwards. […]

Why would the corporate media knowingly freeze out a candidate from national coverage when on paper, the candidate is credentialed, credible, and clearly one of the top three nominees of a major political party?

The answer I believe is as follows: John Edwards is 100% dead serious about destroying the corrupt corporate power structure that has been destroying the American middle class for decades. It’s a structure that is killing the American middle class’s wallets and pocketbooks, schools, health care, ability to own a home, etc… And who owns the Washington Post, the New York Times, 90% of talk radio, NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN […]

Voters in Democratic primaries could give a big middle finger to the national media if they make John Edwards the Democratic nominee for President. An Edwards nomination would be a punch in the gut to the Broders, Russerts, Courics, and other talking head shills in the corporate media. It could be the start of rendering these people utterly powerless.

These corporate shills think they have the power to decide who voters in both parties can select and not select.

U.S. corporate elite fear candidate Edwards

Ask corporate lobbyists which presidential contender is most feared by their clients and the answer is almost always the same — Democrat John Edwards. […]

Open attacks on the business elite are seldom heard from mainstream White House candidates in America, despite skyrocketing CEO pay, rising income inequality, and a torrent of scandals in corporate boardrooms and on Wall Street. […]

“I think Hillary is approachable. She knows where a lot of her funding has come from, to be blunt,” said Greg Valliere, chief political strategist at Stanford Group Co., a market and policy analysis group.

Unbelievable! CNN narrows the Field of Candidates!

Once again in the Corporate Media makes an “Executive Decision” about who America should see as their Viable Choices:

Hillary Clinton
Barack Obama
John McCain
Rudy Giuliani
Mike Huckabee
Mitt Romney

Only these Candidates were the Focus of the latest CNN Poll

Where is John Edwards in this Poll?

(for that matter where is Ron Paul?)

[Edwards has done better than Giuliani, by a long shot!]

[…]

Could it be that CNN did not quite like the Results, when Edwards was included in their last Poll?

CNN poll: Edwards DESTROYS GOP candidates

The mainstream media blackout of John Edwards: Some metrics

[T]he MSM is actively excluding Edwards from the national dialog […]

Of all the multi-candidate headlines on Google News, Edwards appears in just 8%, compared to 97% for Obama and 95% for Clinton.

In other words, out of 2,901 multi-candidate headlines, Edwards appeared in only 228. Obama appeared in 2,813. Hillary, 2,761.

This, my friends, is a f**king blackout.

Survey USA Drops Edwards Based on “Judgment”

I was perplexed by a recent poll done by Survey USA in conjunction with local Oregon news affiliate KATU News, where Edwards was left out of the polling. In case you didn’t know, Edwards has deep support here in Oregon. Oregonians gave more money to Edwards than they have to Clinton or Obama. […]

I asked the representative at Survey USA why they did not include John Edwards in their recent general election polling. He said that they included him in the primary polls, but when it comes to general election polling they make a judgment call on how viable a candidate is. I told him that didn’t make sense because they included Rudy Giuliani and he has less delegates than Edwards and is less viable as of right now. He said that they make a judgment based on how likely that candidate is to make it to the general election, and if a candidate is less viable they drop them, and if they’re more viable they include them. I reiterated that it still didn’t make sense, and that if that is how they did things, they shouldn’t include Giuliani, and if they did, they should include Edwards since he is more viable.

Corporate media and the Edwards unelectability myth

One of the biggest myths spread by the corporate media and corporate Democrats about the 2008 election is that John Edwards’ populist platform makes him the least electable Democrat. They claim that Edwards’ rhetoric is a fiery, divisive brand of class warfare, and that Americans want a uniter like Barack Obama, or an experienced insider like Hillary Clinton — not an “angry” outsider who will fight against the system.

This myth couldn’t be more false. […]

Since July 1, 2007, there have been ten public polls testing Edwards and McCain in a general election match-up. Edwards wins 7 of these, losing once and tying twice. His average margin of victory is 5.5 points.

No Democrat does better.

John Edwards defeated an incumbent Republican U.S. Senator in a red state.

Neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton has ever faced a tough Republican opponent. Ever.

[…]

CNN has stopped including John Edwards in its general election polls. In CNN’s most recent poll that actually included Edwards, Edwards beat McCain by by eight points. In that same poll, McCain beat Clinton by two points, and tied Obama.

Fox News has never once — not once, not a single time — done a general election poll featuring John Edwards, despite doing several with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

By now it should be obvious to you that the corporate media doesn’t want you or your neighbor to vote for John Edwards.

Are you going to follow their instructions?

The Polls You Won’t Hear Much About

[F]or all the hubbub over the New Hampshire pre-primary polls and how accurate or inaccurate they were, it’s rather interesting that some polls that may have more import have got comparatively minimal coverage.

I speak of the CNN and Rasmussen polls that provide national head-to-head match-ups of presidential candidates. […]

McCain is by far the GOP’s strongest candidate in the general election. […]

John Edwards is by far the Democrats’ strongest candidate in the general election. He is the only one who is not beaten outright by any Republican candidate […]

Hillary Clinton is the weakest Democratic candidate in the general election. She loses to every single Republican except Fred Thompson and Ron Paul […]

Barack Obama is in between Edwards and Hillary Clinton in strength in the general election.

Cheering For The Narrative More Than The Candidate

If Edwards wins, the narrative will be about progressivism and populism rising. If Obama wins, the narrative will be about partisanship and ideology declining. If Clinton wins, the narrative will probably be about political skill, or something. Whether or not these narratives are either fair or even accurate matters little right now, since there is precious little time to change them. As such, the apparent truth is that an Edwards victory […] will result in much better press for progressives than either a Clinton or Obama victory. Also, beyond the Democratic nomination narrative, consider the rhetoric Clinton, Edwards and Obama would choose in the general elections. As TocqueDeville has pointed out, if Edwards were to become the nominee, we can expect nine months of populist, anti-corporate, anti-elites rhetoric. For my money, that is far preferable to hearing nine months of rhetoric about experience and getting things done, or nine months of rhetoric about the start of a post-partisan, post-ideological age.

Just Imagine Hearing This on Your TV for the Next Year

“How long are we going to allow drug companies and insurance companies to run America? America doesn’t belong to them. It belongs to us.”

“For 25 years corporate greed has gotten its way in Washington, destroying American jobs and the middle class, while the establishment did nothing.”

“Corporate greed won’t be stopped without a president who fights for you. Saving the middle class will be an epic battle.”

“It’s time to tell the truth. These big corporations, and their greed, they are stealing your children’s future. We will never change this country unless we are willing to take these people on.”

When is the last time you heard “corporate greed” on your television? I can’t say it doesn’t happen. But when guests say such things on talk shows, they don’t get invited back.

The corporate controlled media has an unwritten rule – don’t bite the hand that feeds. So it’s incredibly rare that the much needed discussion about corporate power over our government is allowed to occur. This despite the fact that corporate power, and its instruments of control over our democracy, is the central issue of our time. […]

I really like Barack Obama. But as brilliant as Obama is, his message of some kind of undefined change, based on a new “tone”, is abstract and unconvincing.

It is as though Obama wants to usher in a new era of “change” without making any enemies. Do you really believe that you can get serious healthcare reform, which must inevitably cost insurance companies billions, without making them your enemy? People have killed for much less.

Do you really believe that the people who run Halliburton, and CIGNA, and Monsanto Inc. are otherwise good people who just haven’t been properly invited under the happy tent? Do you really think a new tone of bipartisanship is what we are missing?

Ok you Edwards supporters

I have had it with you guys.
I didn’t like your candidate.
I hate his vote on the war.
And you NEVER shut up about him. EVER.
Edwards this and EENR that.
In fact…..

Because of you…..

I am taking a second look at him.
Your positive diaries and upbeat outlook, more than anything else, has persuaded me.
So I am looking at his policies and looking beyond his war vote.

I am looking at who he is now. […]

I have gone back and listened to his speeches.
I watched him in the last debate.
I find myself agreeing with him more and more.

Edwards Campaign: The Race Has Just Begun and the Path to Victory

a new strategy memo from the Edwards campaign […]

Ultimately we expect the race to narrow to one of the celebrity candidates and us. And when that happens, we are confident that the remaining contests will break in our direction as voters are finally offered a choice the national media has ignored all year — the most progressive, most electable candidate in the race, John Edwards.

While the media has annointed two celebrity candidates, both are flawed. Senator Clinton has electability issues and stands squarely for the status quo. As for Senator Obama, we saw his weakness in New Hampshire. If he was thrown off by Senator Clinton’s attacks, think what will happen when the Republicans throw all they got at him. If Obama is too weak to stand up to the Republicans, and Clinton too corporate, then Democrats will look to another who both stands for change and is willing to fight for it. That one is John Edwards. […]

Facing two $100 million candidates, Edwards is only 7 delegates behind. Heavily outspent and out mediaed, he is right in the fight. […]

It is so early. 98% of voters have not been heard from.

John Edwards: $7 Million Dollars In One Day – Make It Happen

There’s been a lot of talk in these parts about how the media is shutting John Edwards out of the race. He has been excluded from polling. His campaign events have not been covered. Other candidates with less to show for themselves receive more attention. Etc.

All of the these things are true. And all of the solutions I’ve seen have merit. We definitely need to put pressure on the media to cover this election fairly. But the media is probably not going to alter course and suddenly exhibit a journalistic integrity that they haven’t even thought about since their freshman year of college. They need to be given a reason to change course; a reason that fits their definition of news.

So either Edwards could engage in a high speed police chase with Britney’s kids on his lap and a missing white girl in the trunk, or he could raise $7 million dollars in one day. […]

Ron Paul has managed to stir up respectable levels of exposure despite his low standings in most polls. […] Paul had validated himself in terms the media can understand — fund raising. Having drawn in a record $6 million dollars in one day went a long ways toward forcing the press to pay attention.

What I want to know is this: If Paul can do it, why can’t Edwards? Edwards has far more support than Paul and he ought to be able to mobilize his supporters to attempt to set a new fund raising record. […]

So I propose that we do so. I would like to suggest Friday, January 18, as the day to shatter both the record and the media’s tinted glass ceiling on coverage.

Don’t let the door hit you

Goodbye, 2007. I can’t say I’ll be sorry to see you go.

I was prepared to like you, but almost at once you caused my mom a lot of trouble and discomfort and finally took her from me. Then you took my dog. Meanwhile you kept busy breaking my rib, crashing my car, infecting my lungs, and dismantling my democracy. For good measure you effected the departure of some of my favorite co-workers. It’s almost as if you had a personal vendetta against me.

Well as M told James Bond in Goldfinger, and as someone should have told you twelve months ago,

This isn’t a personal vendetta, [2]007. It’s an assignment like any other. And if you can’t treat it as such, coldly and objectively, [2]008 can replace you.

Of course it wasn’t all bad. You did manage to keep my wife and children safe and sound, and we did enjoy some modest prosperity. Still, I look forward to your replacement.

Home stretch

It’s just a few days until Iowa Democrats cast the first votes in the 2008 presidential primaries, so it’s time for a summary post not only about why it’s important to vote for John Edwards but also why it’s important not to vote for Obama or Hillary.

A couple of weeks ago, when I wrote my blog post about influencing the Federal Election Commission, I sent a version of it to a mailing list of old school classmates. Because my message advocated John Edwards for president, one classmate replied, “His policies sound good, but he is a phony.” Here’s what I wrote:

When I was in college, I had a few friends who were in CMU’s sizable drama program. I was never really comfortable around those folks, even though I was nominally pretty close to a couple of them. To me, the math nerd/scientist/software engineer with only rudimentary expertise in interpersonal relationships, the way they could (and often did) change personalities on a whim was disconcerting. The way they could project those personalities around a room, and sometimes seemingly right through me, was downright unnatural.

Presidential candidates are like this. They are necessarily playing a role. They are all phonies, though some are better actors than others. You can’t judge a candidate on his or her apparent personality. In the first place, it is guaranteed not to be their real personality. (Case in point: the voters who thought Bush was the one they’d prefer to have a beer with and who now suffer from a monster case of buyer’s remorse. Case in point: the wooden Al Gore of 2000, who disappeared without a trace as soon as the election was over.) And in the second place, the skills a politician uses to project an electable personality have little to do with the skills they must bring to bear as President. To judge those skills, good-sounding policies are a start. A paper trail of actual achievements aligned with the stated policies is even better, and Edwards has that too. The deal-clincher for me is his in-the-trenches experience battling monied interests on behalf of ordinary citizens — and winning.

Later in that thread I added:

However, there are still a couple of good reasons to vote for Edwards regardless of what you think of him or his specific policies. These reasons are kind of “meta” but I think they’re still valid:

He’s clearly positioned as the progressive/populist candidate. That alone can set the tone for the next administration and for coattail Congressional races if he should win. The nationwide narrative becomes, “Americans are fed up with coroporatist politics.”

The GOP has already attacked him a few times. Why would they? They haven’t gone after Obama or Clinton (yet) and their fundraising is in pretty poor shape; why not hold their fire until after the primaries? It’s pretty clear that the reason is the GOP wants to run against Obama or Clinton and thinks it has a chance against them, and fears Edwards. You may have seen the recent CNN poll that shows only Edwards beating all potential Republican presidential candidates, and by the widest margins. See “CNN poll: Edwards DESTROYS GOP candidates.”

To return to the idea that politicians are phonies, I coincidentally read a great quote yesterday at “Edwards HAS NO money problem!” that makes my point more concisely:

Does Edwards TRULY BELIEVE his semi-populist positions, or is he simply pandering? Who knows. But at least he is pandering TO ME, and not the lobbyists for banks, insurance companies, and defense contractors!

Click here to see my other blog posts about John Edwards.

Here’s another person’s eloquent endorsement of Edwards:

I didn’t start as a fan of John Edwards and at first dismissed him as just another light weight pretty boy politician trying to do his finest JFK impersonation and the media seemed to constantly project that image of him as well.

But as I watched the health care debate unfold and became aware of John Edwards, I could see he was driving the policy debate on the issue. Over time I watched him drive every issue of this campaign one after another.

I watched him not only make proposals but give detailed plans on how he intended to accomplish what he was proposing. I read all of the experts as they vetted his plans and crunched the numbers and watched his support grow among the professionals in all of the fields that he was making proposals in; on health care reform, economics and fair trade, tax reform to reward work, protecting labor’s right to organize unions, and ending the war in Iraq.

[…]

All the while John’s plans got more detailed and Hillary’s plans and Obama’s plans seemed to lag far behind and when they did talk details, what they were proposing seemed to be a version of what the Edwards plan was. I listened to the parsing and heard statements of commitment only to be followed by qualifiers like, “I didn’t mean coverage, I meant access.”

Then John Edwards issued his plans in writing and I realized just how really serious about everything he is.

Here’s why not to vote for Barack Obama:

Following close on the heels of Obama endorsements from the neoconservative Weekly Standard and the conservative Republican newspaper the Sioux City Journal, yet another conservative Republican newspaper the Dallas Morning News has now rushed to support Obama.

[…]

Why do these outlets and media who have fawned over Bush in the past like Obama so much?

Could it be because his positions on the crucial issues of health care and Social Security are closer to those of the Republican right wing than those of any other Democratic contender?

[…]

Or maybe it’s just that these Republicans just want the Democrats to nominate someone they know will be easy to best.

And here’s why not to vote for Hillary Clinton:

In seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, Mrs. Clinton lays claim to two traits nearly every day: strength and experience. But as the junior senator from New York, she has few significant legislative accomplishments to her name. She has cast herself, instead, as a first lady like no other: a full partner to her husband in his administration, and, she says, all the stronger and more experienced for her “eight years with a front-row seat on history.”

But during those two terms in the White House, Mrs. Clinton did not hold a security clearance. She did not attend National Security Council meetings. She was not given a copy of the president’s daily intelligence briefing. She did not assert herself on the crises in Somalia, Haiti and Rwanda.

And during one of President Bill Clinton’s major tests on terrorism, whether to bomb Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998, Mrs. Clinton was barely speaking to her husband, let alone advising him, as the Lewinsky scandal sizzled.

What brings you here, 2007 edition

Here are some of the top queries from various search engines that resulted in hits on my blog during the past year or so, reproduced verbatim from my server logs. (Last year’s results are here.) Each related family of queries is listed with a main variant in bold and selected other variants, plus the percentage of query-hits represented by that family.

I was at first surprised to see that hits for “James Bond villains” outnumbers hits for “vampire lesbian girl scouts” (etc.) and “sex” (etc.) combined, but then realized: the percentages are a function both of the popularity of that search and of the ranking of my site in the search results. In other words, if you’re looking for anything about vampires or lesbians or sex I regret to say there are a lot of likelier websites for you to visit before mine.

James Bond villains; The Villains of bond; deformed bond villains; “james bond” +villains +clothes	10.2%
William H. Macy; william h macy photos; face de William H. Macy	5.0%
Vampire lesbian girl scouts; lesbian vampires; naked lesbians; lesbian girl scouts; naked girl scouts; kissing lesbian girls; zombie girl scouts; evil girlscouts; girl scout decorated cake	4.5%
Sex etc.; horsey style sex; lesbian masturbation; “sex positions illustrated”; vampire sex; lesbians having hot lesbian sex; lesbian sex soundeffect; “San Francisco Masturbate-a-thon”; squat girl masturbate -cock -man -boy -blow; dildo attached to wall; sex positions kitty style; attach dildo to floor; How to convince my lady staf for sex?; sex positions in alphanumeric; “park and ride” “sex positions illustrated”	3.2%
Jaws ride; Jaws ride construction; jaws hitchcock	3.1%
e to the i pi plus one; pi relation to e; mathematical constant e Euler comic; relating pi, e, 1 and 0; “amazing relationship” e pi	2.3%
Don Fanucci; vito corleone fanucci	2.3%
Honeybee/Bees in chimney; humming sound when close glass fireplace doors; honeybees in chimney; bees in fireplace; bees chimney flying down	2.2%
Star Wars; 5th august 1977; star wars remake; hoth rebel base; “your tauntaun will freeze”; exegesis “empire strikes back”; star wars ben kenobi ghost; was obi wan strong enough to defeat palpatine; In Episode 5 what is the insult of Leia to Han Solo which Chewie laughed that Han called him “fuzzball” ?; lego star wars millennium falcon; star wars cassette tape 1977; “bob glickstein” “star wars”; mark hamill car crash empire strikes back monster; han solo slices open tauntaun quote; HOW DID THE FREAKIN EMPIRE BEGIN?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!; August+5th+1977; star wars novelization 1977; What does yoda say when luke comments that he is not afraid; why didn’t Luke kill the Wampa; “asteroid field”+”star wars”; star wars allegories; star wars 1970 nerd; “time magazine” 1977 “star wars”	2.1%
Pirates of the Caribbean; pirate medallion; does elizabeth swann love jack sparrow; elizabeth swann’s red dress; jack sparrow character motivation	2.1%
Widescreen viewing area; “what size tv to buy”; “square inches” diagonal widescreen chart; determine tv width given diagonal; 42″ 16:9 square inches; 16:9 4:3 screen equivalence OR correspondance; DIAGONAL ASPECT RATIO FORMULA; pythagoras 16:9 screen size 32″	1.8%
Godfather; Godfather part II poster; Godfather Part 4: Fredo’s Revenge	1.8%
Susan Oliver/Orion Slave Girl; vina star trek; star trek green orion slave; nude Orion slave girl; orion slave girls makeup; orion slave girls color correction	1.7%
Cathy Lee Crosby/Wonder Woman; cathy lee crosby wonderwoman film download; cathy+lee+crosby+as+wonder+woman; wonder woman drag; WONDERWOMAN TV MOVIE	1.7%
Rogaine; scalp conditions; itchy scalp; rogaine results; scalp exercise; rogaine effectiveness	1.7%
Ursula sex; ursula undress; ursula dildo; ursula sex disney	1.6%
Comcast; comcast removes channels; comcast turn off service; comcast losing west coast feeds; complaints over comcast hbo; disable speed reduction comcast cable; compression artifacts comcast; how do i delete channels i do not watch in comcast; comcast crappy broadcast; comcast reduction in service; do i get a rate reduction when comcast removes channels; I want both west coast and east coast feeds	1.6%
Bob Glickstein; gee bobg; “bob glickstein” +yoga; bob glickstein andrea; bob glickstein imdb; growing up Glickstein	1.4%
Trophy; ugly trophy; dna trophy; bezos trophy	1.3%
Dog; how to draw dogs; “remington dog park”; dog pee drives away evil spirits; veterinary dogs and chocolate	1.3%
Lulav; lulav and etrog; big picture of a lulav and etrog; lulav by its self; lulav etrog chabad; sukkot lulav without etrog	1.3%
Star Trek/Enterprise/Kirk/etc.; spock uhura; Uhura uniform; 60 star trek uniform; bonk bonk on the head star trek; Captain Kirk’s Insignia; enterprise blueprints; happy birthday star trek; Klingons-Star Trek; Atheist Star Trek;	1.2%
Amy Linker; what happened to amy linker; amy linker and tv land awards	1.1%
Jodie Foster; jodie foster bugsy malone; YOUNG JODIE FOSTER; +”give a little love and it all comes back to you” +foster	1.1%
Joseph Costanzo; joe costanzo restaurant; Joseph costanzo primadonna	1.1%
The end of Superman; superman reverse time; superman in the end; superman earth spinning; can superman go the speed of light; how many times can superman fly around earth in 1 second; +”it is forbidden for you to interfere in human history”; superman rewind time; how many times does superman fly around the earth in order to reverse its rotation	1.0%
Frank Pentangeli; frank pentangeli hit; roth corleone Frank Pentangeli assassination; frank pentangeli johnny ola	1.0%
Thai gem scam; thailand scam; majestic export jewelry thailand scam; gems profit thailand; thai sapphire scam; thailand conman; buying gemstones, thailand, blog; thai Export Center scam; selling thai gems; what to do if conned in thailand; david maurer thailand	1.0%
Evil cats	0.8%
Food photography; food stylist; food styling “pasta”; food stylists cereal; food stylist burger; tricks of a food stylist	0.8%
Each daughter has the same number…; In a certain family each daughter has the same number of brothers and sisters. Each son has twice as many sisters as brothers. How many sons and daughters are there in the family? Now there are two ways to do this obviously, you can do it the hard way or the easy way.	0.8%
Fizzies; what ever happened to fizzies drink tablets; how do fizzies work; fizzies that are new; Fizzie tablet sex aid; truckload of fizzies; FIZZIES FOUNTAIN	0.7%
James Bond; vintage james bond girls; james bond toys; the bond men; Live and Let Die Band James Bond	0.7%
Pez museum; pez incredibles violet; batman pez dispensers; pez guns; why didnt violet parr become a pez machine; headless PEZ dispensers	0.7%
Vincent Price; old photos of Vincent Price; Vincent Price gay; “the saint” vincent price;	0.5%
Candy; old time candy; “dylan’s candy bar”; Candy of yesteryear	0.5%
Entenmann’s; golden cake; entenmanns’ chocolate chip filled crumb cake recipe; entenmann fudge golden cake	0.5%
Adam Stoller; why i owe adam stoller an apology; fish adam stoller	0.5%
MoveOn; moveon.org bad; moveon.org founder; move away from moveon.org; moveon endorsements nov 2007 election	0.5%
Vertical speed indicator/Altimeter; static port; instrument dial Concorde speed; how does an altimeter work; pitot static instruments; ram air pressure pitot; how does the vsi work? flying	0.5%
Cigarettes/Camels/Still Life With Woodpecker; Joe Camel; tom robbins woodpecker; camel tom robbins	0.5%
Baron Munchausen; was baron munchausen an atheist	0.5%
Sharon Stone; sharon stone naked; sharon stone’ pictures, 1970; sharon stone en lingerie fine	0.5%
Computer; computers internet blog; “apple II home computer”	0.4%
xkcd; xkcd complex numbers; calculus xkcd; math xkcd	0.4%
Bob Falfa/Martin Stett; big bob falfa; purchase a bob falfa hat; falfa and milner	0.4%
Adrift/Open Water 2; “open water 2” true story tried everything; understand explain open water 2:adrift ending?; FORGOT TO LOWER LADDER ON YACHT	0.4%
Honda Fit; finding a honda fit; pre order “honda fit” bay area; vw rabbit or honda fit?	0.4%
Carl Sagan; “carl sagan” +billions; cosmos carl sagan vangelis heaven hell; “circumference of the earth” carl sagan; eratosthenes carl sagan; Carl Sagan and Star Trek	0.4%
Splashdown; splashdown lyrics meaning; i feel so elated would you please bring me joy lyrics; free splashdown downloads karma slave; lyrics so if your past approaches you pulled into a war you’ll lose; karma slave splashdown video; i feel so elated i do i do splashdown	0.4%
The Incredibles; Life Lessons The Incredibles; incredibles analogy of family togetherness	0.3%
Legobiggest lego city ever made; Cool lego creations; LEGO WORLD RECORD FOR MILLENIUM FALCON	0.3%
Birthday invitation; neverland invitation	0.3%
Mill Valley Pediatrics; what new rule causes pediatrician to close office; dr. Harris pediatrics mill valley	0.3%
BDSM; BDSM and rodent; hellium balloons bdsm; bdsm “trembling with fear”; professional bdsm pittsburgh; bdsm vanity plates	0.3%
Richard S. Castellano	0.3%
Bugsy Malone/Scott Baio; coca cola jingle+you give a little love and all comes back to you	0.3%
Games magazine/Calculatrivia marathon; ken jennings calculatrivia; “games magazine” contest t-shirt	0.3%
Penis; Jonah Falcon penis; christmas penis drawing; penis peeing pictures; penis doodles; “draw a penis”	0.3%
Drawing/scribbling/doodling; kids scribbles	0.3%
Raiders of the Lost Ark; indiana jones medallion + raiders of the lost ark; indiana jones finds millenium falcon; indiana jones harrison ford sean connery	0.3%
I know it was you Fredo.; Johnny Ola Fredo; HOW DOES MICHAEL KNOW ABOUT FREDO; +”why” +michael +kill +fredo	0.3%
Federation Trading Post	0.2%
Funny epitaph; headstone humor; headstone for mom	0.2%
Batman; shark repellent spray; batman and the shark; batman robin “more toyetic”	0.2%
Handshadow; Hand-Shadow play	0.2%
Peter and the Starcatchers	0.2%
Watch neighbor undress; neighbor undress photo	0.2%
Lemon Ice King of Corona; queens ices	0.2%
Weight; weight graph; college freshman weight graph; jewish weight loss	0.2%
Marty Goldstein/Black Book; ‘marty goldstein’ ‘creative black book’; i remember going to the black book office zanetti	0.2%
Kinds of meat; meatballs three kinds of meat	0.2%
Fligth to Mars	0.2%
Supertanker; how much does a supertanker cost?; how many barrels of oil does a supertanker carry; how much money does a supertanker captain make; running costs for a supertanker; becoming a supertanker captain; supertankers are curved	0.2%
Jewish; jew obnoxious; jewish products; mormon jew; mountain jew; val kilmer sephardic jewish	0.2%
Cartelligent; Leigh Taylor, Cartelligent; cartelligent price for honda fit	0.2%
Sweetener; hooray sweetener; cyclamates popularity sodas; Is Cyclamates good for you; sodium bicarbonate sweetener cancer	0.2%
Captain Morgan rum	0.2%
Gerald Zanetti	0.2%
Bush smile	0.2%
Salt Lake flats; nevada open salt lake	0.2%
Disney; disney+AND+fingerprint; disney park hopper fingerprint; thumper disney	0.2%
Koyaanisqatsi	0.2%
Katharine Hepburn	0.2%
Incremental backup; jungledisk incremental backups; s3 backup incremental mirror linux; simple linux incremental backups; infinite backup	0.2%
Rhymes with Bethany; bethany accident utah; something that rhymes with bethany; poem for bethany	0.1%
Sci-fi spaceships; cool Scifi Spaceships; most beautiful spaceships	0.1%
I Dream of Jeannie; healey irresistible to when i dream of jeannie episode; i dream of jeanie colorization	0.1%
Laundry; how to get quarters laundry; cold undissolved laundry soap; monopolize laundry machines; laundry pile	0.1%
Anakin/Padme; How much do Anakin’s talent, pride and ambitions affect his decisions to turn to ‘the dark side’?	0.1%
Making Mr. Right; malkovich “making mr right”	0.1%
Pop-culture grid; “the pop culture grid”+last concert you saw	0.1%
Adventurer’s Inn; toboggan adventurer’s inn	0.1%
Clemenza; young clemenza; who killed clemenza	0.1%
Glenne Headley	0.1%
1776/“Yours Yours Yours”	0.1%
Nature of reality; 10 dimensions of reality; how to understand ten dimensional reality; three-dimensional pants	0.1%
Dunk tank; “spring carnival” dunk	0.1%
Misconstruction	0.1%
Sarah Jessica Parker; sarah jessica parker in square pegs	0.1%
Mr. Arrigo; Robert arrigo teacher	0.1%
Eli Attie	0.1%
Hog-calling time in Nebraska; What tune is hog calling time in nebraska sung to?; ORIGINS OF HOG CALLING; hog calling songs	0.1%
Eulogy for a friend	0.1%
Indiana University; indiana university hofstadter	0.1%
Cynthia Nixon; Cynthia Nixon manhattan project	0.1%
Pine Knoll Bungalow Colony; bungalow colonies in monticello	0.1%
Prison Break; prisoner 94941; michael scofield myer briggs; “prisoner number” scofield	0.1%
Winnemucca, NV; Winnemucca weekly pet friendly motels; reasons to love Winnemucca, NV	0.1%
Steve Volan	0.1%
P.S. 196; all teachers from p.s.196	0.1%
Knish Nosh; knish nosh health department	0.1%
Mucoshave	0.1%
Laser/Theodore Maiman; 1966 national geographic “the laser’s bright magic”; what kind of food does theodore maiman likes; did theodore maiman get alot of money for making the laser	0.1%
Jeff Bezos; BEZOS THE GREATEST	0.1%
Universal Hall Pass	0.1%

Doubling jeopardy

I have temporarily removed the link that has been at the top of my sidebar for several months, allowing you to contribute to the John Edwards campaign via ActBlue, and for now I urge you to make your contributions directly through John Edwards’ website.

This comes on the heels of news that the Federal Election Commission may publish an opinion that would treat ActBlue like other political action committees and disqualify ActBlue contributions from eligibility for federal matching funds. As you may know, John Edwards, alone among the major presidential contenders, has opted for voluntary spending caps in order to qualify for public campaign financing funds. Small, private donations made directly to the campaign are matched by public funds, doubling their effectiveness. Until this news, ActBlue users believed the same was true of their donations; now this is in doubt.

ActBlue and other organizations like it are not political action committees in the conventional sense; they do not do their own fundraising. Instead they are conduits providing a convenient technical mechanism for individual contributions directly to the campaigns they support. There are just a few days in which to influence the FEC to choose this interpretation of the governing regulations.

I wrote to the Edwards campaign and asked their advice. Here was their response:

I would encourage you to make your remaining contributions directly through our website. As you can imagine we are deeply disappointed with the FEC’s potential decision as we view ACTBlue as a valuable resource.

So though I am a big believer in ActBlue I reluctantly urge you to avoid it for donations to the Edwards campaign, at least until this issue is settled. And regardless of how you feel about John Edwards, it’s a fact that public financing of political campaigns is the best chance we have of reducing corruption in politics, so please do as I have done and urge the FEC not to nip it in the bud with this anti-small-donor policy. Here’s the letter I just sent to Mary Dove, Secretary of the FEC:

To: Mary Dove <mdove@fec.gov>
Subject: ActBlue et al.

Dear Ms. Dove,

I am a private individual who occasionally donates small amounts of money to favored political candidates through ActBlue.com. I learned recently that your Draft Opinion 2007-31 would disqualify such contributions from eligibility for public matching funds (where such contributions would otherwise be eligible).

I made my donations in the full expectation that they would be treated exactly like small, private donations made directly to the candidates. I daresay that was the expectation of the overwhelming majority of ActBlue users.

I therefore urge you to support “Draft A” of Opinion 2007-27, which would affirm that expectation, and to reject Draft Opinion 2007-31.

Sincerely, [name and address]

If you write your own letter, keep it short, to the point, and polite, and include your name and address.

You can find out more about this issue at these links:

Update 14-Dec: The good guys lost.

Wow wow wow wow wow

I’m an avid reader of DailyKos. Once in a while I post an article of my own there, but those invariably sink like a stone in DailyKos’s highly competitive article-rating system, and almost no one sees them. On very rare occasions I post a comment about someone else’s post, but those get even fewer readers so I seldom bother.

Just now, however, I was moved to post the comment “Wow wow wow wow wow” after reading the post John Edwards and The Best Christmas Gift Ever by someone called “leisure.” I hope you’ll read it too. Your heart will grow three sizes.

If ghosts could vote

Yesterday would have been my mom’s 73rd birthday. Her death earlier this year was in part a case of “Murder by Spreadsheet,” which is the phrase that describes the criminal cost-cutting widely practiced by health insurers. They routinely delay or override the official recommendations of medical professionals, fully aware of the deleterious and often fatal effects on their patients. The outstanding and passionate reportage on this subject by DailyKos’ nyceve will curl your hair.

In my mom’s case, her doctors wanted to keep her at the hospital while she recovered from a severe infection and received radiation treatments for (a very treatable form of) cancer. The insurance company said no and sent her to a nursing home, where the standard of care was far lower. There her health declined rapidly; she was dead within a few weeks.

Now here’s a surprising fact: of the 100 U.S. Senators, Democratic and Republican, who is the one who has taken the most campaign money from evil HMO’s? Hillary Clinton.

Here is another surprising fact: who is the U.S. Senator who has taken the second largest amount of HMO money? Barack Obama.

Now, which presidential candidate made a career of fighting evil HMO’s and drug companies and their ilk — and winning? Which one has promised, if elected, to discontinue Congress’ golden health-care plan unless it passes meaningful health-care reform? Which one has a detailed and realistic plan for just such reform? And which one has opted for public campaign financing in order to be free of undue corporate influence? John Edwards.

My mom’s ghost and I implore you to vote for John Edwards. He’s our only good hope for making sure the insurance companies don’t turn too many other people into ghosts.

Censure Dianne Feinstein

For years I have been sending letters to Senator Dianne Feinstein expressing disappointment in one vote of hers or another. She is on the wrong side of many issues.

In the recent past she has outdone herself in coddling the Bush administration. She helped Michael Mukasey become Attorney General — the top law-enforcement officer of the nation — despite his refusal to renounce torture, an illegal practice. And she has voiced her support of “telecom immunity,” which would rescind privacy laws that telecom companies broke, for no reason other than that the burden of defending themselves in the resulting lawsuits is too onerous. (Message: break any laws you want if you can pay later to have it officially overlooked.)

These actions were taken under a serious conflict-of-interest cloud. Feinstein’s husband, Richard Blum, is a defense contractor whose company has won lucrative no-bid contracts from the Bush administration.

Every time I’ve mailed her an objection, I’ve received a prompt, polite, and discursive response telling me we’ll just have to “agree to disagree.” Enough of that.

So I’ve joined the Courage Campaign’s effort to have the California Democratic Party censure her. Please do the same.

I also plan to send her a small bottle of cheap perfume with the note, “You stink.”

Corporations are not people

Corporations are not people, yet as “juristic persons” they enjoy many of the same protections that our government “of the people, by the people, for the people” grants to people. At the same time, they suffer fewer of the penalties. How do you incarcerate a transgressing corporation? Why are people subject to capital punishment and corporations aren’t?

It’s hard to pick the greatest threat to the American idea right now, but the lopsided power of amoral corporations is certainly on the short list. They profiteer from war, they mute our public discourse, they produce unhealthful things in unhealthful ways and then use corporate Jedi mind tricks to get us to buy them.

People have a time horizon of a generation or two: they want to leave a better world to their children and grandchildren and are willing to sacrifice in the short term to make sure of it. But even conscientious corporations are required to focus only on the next few fiscal quarters. Taking a longer view — not maximizing profits right now — risks a shareholder lawsuit.

On the other hand, there has never been a greater engine of prosperity in human history than the modern corporation. It’s easy to demonize corporations for the evils they cause — but it wouldn’t be so easy without the comforts they also provide.

Here is why John Edwards is my choice for president: he alone is dedicated to standing up to the power of big corporations. He alone has the paper trail to prove it’s not just campaign bluster. He alone has announced a plan to make corporations play fair. Yet he’s a corporate player himself — not a frothing, dogmatic anti-capitalist — who understands their underlying value.

Category: politics