Daffodil Lane: Jamison's Rants Archives

May 17, 2007

Gas prices shoot past Katrina-level records to new high

Not but two weeks ago, national gas price averages got to the $3 a gallon level, and the question was whether the summer gas peak had happened early or if we were looking at a record-high season for gas prices. Guess which one we can now confirm? If we take a look at the Energy Information Administration's gas price averages going back to 1983, it's clear that this week we're seeing the highest prices on record. Ever. Their average is $3.143 a gallon. The last time prices were close to that level was $3.117 back in September 2005 (right after Hurricane Katrina). The EIA creates their average using all grades of fuel. AAA's current average for regular-grade fuel is $3.103. So, how are we driving smarter now?

Ouch!!! We've definitely got to start taking some serious steps toward energy independence in this country. This is beyond ridiculous! Even if you don't believe in peak oil or anything like that, you have to admit paying $3.14 a gallon is killing the American economy. Every dollar spent on gas is not being spent on other things that Americans usually buy with their free cash. It's just going to have a draining effect on the economy. It definitely could lead to a long summer. If you haven't looked into buying a Hybrid folks, you should start looking now.

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I'm glad school is almost out.

Posted by: mums at May 17, 2007 6:15 PM

And now, I'm almost, almost regretting the purchase of my F150 over a hybrid. Luckily, I only drive 5 minutes to work and my wife can stay under 20 miles a day. I cannot imagine driving the hour to work that most of the guys in my unit do every day. That's to work, at least an hour and a half with traffic back to their homes.

If there's anything I'm ticked at the government over it's the prices of gas and illegal immigration.

Posted by: Wayne at May 20, 2007 10:18 PM

May 9, 2007

Finally done!

I finished my last paper yesterday evening. Now I just have to finish my last survey (Which is broken. I told them how to fix the code, but they haven't done it yet) and I can completely close the book on my first semester back at school. The next semester starts in a few weeks. I have to say, I was surprised at how quickly I adapted to the new school environment and at the same time, how quickly it annoyed me just like the old school environment.

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May 1, 2007

Nasa 'rejects Russia Moon help'

The head of Russia's space agency says that the US has rejected a Moscow proposal that the two countries join forces to explore the Moon.
"We were ready to co-operate, but for unknown reasons, the United States have said they will undertake this programme themselves," Anatoly Perminov said.

US space agency Nasa has said it plans to start work on a base on the Moon when astronauts return there in 2020.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what this is all about. The reality is that NASA can't have the Russians involved in their planning for a moon base because they have no plans for a moon base at all and the Russians would tell on them. This is all a part of the gutting of NASA in hopes of ending serious space exploration by the United States. The stages of the destruction of America's future has been clearly laid out over the last seven years. First they destroyed the SSTO program, then the shuttle program and now the entire future focus of the agency itself. I've heard of turning back the clock, but come on! We are seriously trying to sell the American people on rockets from the 1960's as the future?

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April 24, 2007

GM discontinues the parallel hybrid Silverado and Sierra trucks

A few years back General Motors silently introduced the PHT versions of the Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups. The parallel hybrid trucks (PHT) had GM's first cut at a mild hybrid system. Unfortunately, they never provided much fuel economy benefit only giving about 2mpg more than a standard truck. Like the system used on the Saturn Vue and Aura, it can't move the vehicle on battery power alone.
The roughly 3,000 examples that were sold mostly went to fleet users such as contractors. The biggest draw of the motor/generator was actually the ability to use the system as a 2400W generator at any time. The trucks each had four 120V AC outlets which were handy for plugging in tools and other equipment. The electricity could be generated while the trucks were left idling, which obviously wouldn't seem to provide much environmental benefit unless compared to carrying around an extra generator which would likely be a lot noisier and dirtier than the truck engine.

Thank goodness it's gone!! Anytime a right winger wanted to talk about hybrids this was the go to hybrid of choice for them to complain about. The never ending snark was starting to get annoying. This was a crappy American mild hybrid, it's no comparison to a Prius or even a Honda Civic. It was merely a regular car with a built in generator and nothing else, stop pretending it was a significant contribution to the hybrid model. I'm glad to see organizations like Hybrid Watch not even listing these, as what can only be described as extremely mild hybrids, as hybrids at all. It's just an attempt by short sighted American producers to try to give themselves the air of technological innovation that they long since abandoned fifty years ago, all while trying to undermine real companies to help save America from the impending Oil Crisis. Ford is the only American automaker that even tried to build a Hybrid and they ended up just buying the first generation hybrid technology from Toyota so they could actually get it to work.

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Toyota Quarterly Global Sales Surpass GM

You can file this one under things that make me smile folks. Now I don't know if GM will up production to try and pass Toyota before the year is out to hold onto the title, but a new age is approaching in the automotive industry and anything else for that matter. I can not say enough good things about Kaizen and the Toyota Production System to be honest. The amazing simplicity of the philosophy and the system are staggering. In Toyota's world the lowliest grunt can stop an entire production line if they find a problem. Their workers are encouraged to think outside the box and redesign the processes they know best at any time. Anything to make things better and the employees are a valuable part of the process.

Toyota owners came to America and saw the Big 3 in their hey day and were unimpressed. They set about to make something better and oh my did they ever! Toyota is now a leading innovator in automotive technology, always thinking ahead, always making measured steps toward the needs of the customer in the future. The hybrid is prefect example, Toyota sees it as an intermediate step on the way toward a fuel cell powered car. They just need to improve the electric motors and battery technologies along the way, while they work on the fuel cells technology. Everything is planned and choreographed like a Samurai practicing with a sword.

Of course we Americans tend to be the impatient types, being such a young and ambiguous sort of nation. For example most people don't realize that in Japan automakers sell hybrids in every class of vehicle they sell in the US, but only in Japan. They don't offer them here, because for the most part Americans haven't shown much interest in the technology until recently and they've been building the infrastructure to actually support wider and wider demand for their products. Right now the USC Hybrid Center is trying to push the Toyota Estima Hybrid onto the market in America (Here's the sign up if you're interested). I've talked about the Toyota Estima Hybrid before. You'll notice that they are using the new mileage numbers from the EPA instead of the old numbers that they were talking about in the original article. Oh how times have changed!

Some times I worry there isn't method to the movements of Toyota, but time again their genius has amazed and surprised me. I'm going to have faith in them that they are on the right path. More than I can say for the Big 3.

[via The Bonddad Blog]

Read more over at Yahoo Business and AutoblogGreen.

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April 17, 2007

It's hard to change gears

I've been going through my day in zombie mode. I didn't sleep well last night. It will probably take a couple of days for the horror of yesterday's events to settle out. I'm not in the mood for politics right now and everything else seems trivial and unimportant in comparison. I guess I should announce that it's tax day, it's time to pay your due to Uncle Sam. So don't forget that, but other than that, I hope today finds you happy and healthy. Keep the faith kids.

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April 14, 2007

This is so wrong!

Hello Buddy, I hope my email meets you well. My name is sgt James Clayton jr. I am in the Engineering military unit here in Baghdad in Iraq, with Esophageal cancer which has defiled all forms of medical treatment, and right now I have only about a few weeks/month to live, according to medical experts. My late 2 collegues who died last week in a bomb blast and I found a huge sum of $25 Million USD (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2988455.stm) that we have sucessfully moved out of the country to spain via a diplomatic courier service. I am contacting you because i want you to help with claiming of this merchandise and help me distribute them to charity organizations and homeless people. I feel distributing the funds would be a way to appease the LORD and also want God to be merciful to me and my late friends and also accept our souls ,because we have killed so many in the war, but we where only serving our country. I have decided to give this sum 0f $25 Million USD to charity organizations, as I want this to be one of the last good deeds I do on earth. I will want you to help me collect this consignment and dispatched it to charity organizations like i have said earlier.I have set aside 30% for you and your time. The most important thing is that can I TRUST you Once the funds get to you?, and also would you distribute the rest 50% to charity organizations?. Your own part of this deal is to contact the DIPLOMATIC COURIER SERVICE on how the consignment can be released and sent down to your home addresse and also find a safe place where the funds can be kept. If you are interested I will furnish you with more details. But the whole process is simple and we must keep a low profile at all times because if the authoritizes are aware of this funds,it would be seized and used for purchasing ammunations and irrelevant accessories,whereby we have so many sick,homeless kids dying with hunger.. I am awaiting your urgent response on my private email,
sgtjamesclayton@hotmail.com,

IN GOD WE TRUST!!!!

Regards.

SGT .JAMES CLAYTON

This is the first time I've noticed this variant of the Advance fee fraud. This one is more insidious because it attempts to draw upon America's patriotism to trick them. I went ahead and reported it to the FTC and the Treasury Department. This kind of stuff makes me sick, it's hard to believe that Americans fall for this over and over again. You can't get something for nothing, the world just doesn't work that way.

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I just got back to work from my day off and had 3 of these letters in my spam section. It's kind of creepy. I agree with you, there should have been a big light bulb go off for the people who have fallen into this scam, you can't get something for nothing.

Posted by: Jamie at April 17, 2007 6:58 AM

Sorry everyone

I've been extremely busy. Unfortunately between school, work and politics, oh yeah and family I've been running around in circles. It's the end of the fourth quarter at work, so it's the season of reorganization and new initiatives for the new year. For school we had an extra class thrown in to teach me how to write and research. Yes the irony is not lost on me. It's mind numbingly boring and massive amounts of busy work, plus my regular classes which are coming to a close require me to write up larger and larger papers. Politics is all about the Jefferson Jackson dinner. And then I have to find some quality time with the family. Eating and sleeping also has to fit somewhere in all that as well. I've got a window right now to blog, so I'm going to see how many things I can get through before Dianne wakes up and we have to start working on the list of things to do today.

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no problem! I can relate. As you well know :)

Posted by: Moni at April 14, 2007 7:17 PM

April 3, 2007

Florida wins NCAA basketball championship

ATLANTA - The Florida Gators beat Ohio State 84-75 Monday night to become the first team since Duke in 1992 to repeat as NCAA men's basketball champions.
Al Horford had 18 points and 12 rebounds, Taurean Green had 16 points and Greg Oden's 25 points and 12 rebounds weren't enough for Ohio State (35-4) to stop the Gators (35-5) from completing the quest they set upon when all the starters delayed their NBA plans for a try at another title.

"We all love each other and we all love playing with each other," Green said. "People made huge sacrifices. They all came back for this and wouldn't have been satisfied without it."

While the debate about the best teams of all time can truly begin, there is no denying that Florida's overall athletic program is the best in the nation.

This win completes a 2007 championship-game sweep of the Buckeyes in the two biggest college sports — men's hoops and football. Florida, a 41-14 winner in the football title game in January, remains the only program in history to hold both championships at the same time.

Trust me, no one is more pained than me to write that Florida wins anything, but given that Oden is a violent thug it was the best possible outcome in this case. I will reiterate yet again there is only one serious conference in the United States and it's the SEC. I can't wait until Oden gets to the NBA and gets taught a lesson about how to play with the adults and his violent antics will end him up on the bad side of a lot of decent players. (The NBA may be full of thugs, because I don't like basketball, but such is life.)

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GATOR BAIT, CHOMPED AGAIN!!

Despite any behavior or moral shortcomings of Oden, thank God Ohio State didn't have anyone shooting the ball well along the perimeter. If so, I might be in a very blue mood right now. Oden played the most dominating game I've seen in a very long while as a big man. Yes, he had some extra protection from the zebras with a few "questionable call"..okay they were b.s.

Posted by: Wayne at April 4, 2007 3:57 AM

March 26, 2007

"The Great Global Warming Swindle"

I finally got around to watching this latest show piece of the radical rights climate change deniers. I have to say the oil companies sure got their money's worth out of this one!

Alright, if you were dim witted and uneducated it would have been their money's worth. Standard conservative style thinking, one exception makes a rule. I'm baffled how that works in the conservative mind. Basically there are a handful of scientists out there that can't accept the possibility that we are dooming ourselves. I have to admit that it's hard to accept, but you have to put all the science together and then you see the vision of where you're going. Psychology tells us that when faced with something so terrifying and seemingly inevitable, that some people just don't have the mental ability to accept it and take action to avoid it. These are the kind of people that end up on a train track seeing the train coming at them and just standing there transfixed by the horror of it all. This is how the conservative mind seems to work. They see the same horror that everyone else sees, but they just can't deal with it, so they drop into some altered reality and try to ignore it, which I guess if it were something like a train where the side effects of their poor decision making ability would be resolved very quickly, but in the case of something as complicated as global warming, they actually have the potential of making things worse for everyone. Intelligent people on the other hand can debate details of timing and time frames, but in the end they don't abandon reason and just pretend that it isn't happening at all. Conservatives instead get lost in the details and loose the vision of the future. If the train coming at you is blue or green really doesn't change the fact that it's still a train coming at you now does it? You still know to get off the tracks, a conservative screams after you, "you're wrong it's a green train, not blue at all" and then gets hit by the train itself, which in retrospect may have been true, but it didn't change the fact that it was a train at all.

Anyway, "The Great Global Warming Swindle" is a lot of that kind of thinking and the desperate grasping at straws that have become the hallmark of conservative "intellectual" thinking. I really love them bringing up of theories that have long since been proven to be based on bad data or poor science as "proof" that there is a vast conspiracy to make the world into a better place. I mean really that's the horror the conservatives are trying to protect us against...A sustainable existence. Living on only what we need, ending our lives of pointless consumerism, to be better more responsible people. Oh the horror!??? Once again the conservative movement proves it has nothing of value to add to the conversation about the future of the world.

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Sorry about the slacking

Last week was our spring break, so we spent most of our free time goofing off and hanging out together rather than paying attention to blogging. So posting last week was light and unfocused. This week I plan to get back on schedule and start talking about the important stuff that's been going on in the world. I have to finish some homework that was assigned during my spring break by my ruthlessly out of touch professors, but after that I'm golden for more than a little while.

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March 19, 2007

Oh the story of my life!

All the President is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.
- Harry S Truman

People have asked me why I don't blog about the inside of Maryland Democratic politics from my front row seat. This quotation right here sums it up for me, and tragically it doesn't apply to just Presidents, it applies to all politicians. As you can probably guess, I'm a fan of the kicking people to do their jobs option, but I'm told the others work as well I just don't have the patience for it. Ah the frivolity of youth.

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March 15, 2007

Winter Warmest on Record Worldwide

WASHINGTON (AP) -- This winter was the warmest on record worldwide, the government said Thursday in the latest worrisome report focusing on changing climate.
The report comes just over a month after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said global warming is very likely caused by human actions and is so severe it will continue for centuries.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the combined land and ocean temperatures for December through February were 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit above average for the period since record keeping began in 1880.

Of course those on the radical right will go into mad convulsions and hysteria over this one yet again. Interestingly to me that the Northern Hemisphere actually was a lot warmer than the Southern Hemisphere. Since the Southern Hemisphere has more water you'd figure the opposite would be true, which doesn't bode well for our overuse of greenhouse gases causing our problems to stay close to home. Now the radical right wing will likely only focus on the following paragraphs:

For the United States, meanwhile, the winter temperature was near average. The season got off to a late start and spring-like temperatures covered most of the eastern half of the country in January, but cold conditions set in in February, which was the third coldest on record.
For winter, statewide temperatures were warmer than average from Florida to Maine and from Michigan to Montana while cooler-than-average temperatures occurred in the southern Plains and areas of the Southwest.

For Alaska, both February and winter were warmer than average but far from the record warmth of 2003 and 2001, respectively.

I've noticed a trend with them to be America centric in their view of everything. With little consideration that their neighbor's problems will be their own problems in a little while, but it's all about the stick your head in the sand mentality that defines the radical right. It's like playing hide and seek with a three year old...Just because you cover your eyes doesn't mean that I can't see you. The sad part is that most three year olds will someday figure it out, the Republicans not so much.

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March 14, 2007

Jefferson Appointment May Be on Permanent Hold

I was following this story and then we went to Tennessee and I lost it while I was traveling, so this information is a couple of weeks old. I hate to give the Republican party its due, but it's nice to see for the first time in their culture of corruption cycle someone on that side of the aisle actually did the right thing in spite of themselves. It's disgraceful that the Democrats would allow themselves to be tainted like this because of a subgroup within the party. If there was a shadow of a doubt about his guilt, I might give them a pass, but there is no doubt that he is guilty and should be treated as such until he can prove his innocence. Hell for the good of the party he should have refused to take a position that would put the party in danger. I'm not sure what the hell was going through the CBC's head on this one, personally I suspect that this was just an effort by the Blue Dog coalition to undermine the Democratic party in hopes a reestablishing a Republican majority in the House, which seems to be their only focus in existing.

On the CBC front there is good news that they haven't totally lost grasp of reality and the Jefferson thing may just have been a momentary lapse. Today they announced that they would not be hosting another Presidential Debate on the Republican propaganda outlet FoxNews. You will recall back in 2004 the CBC worked with Fox News, which used the occasion to run continuous attacks on the Democratic Presidential candidates with prepackaged GOP talking points. This year the CBC saw the light of not seeking to destroy Democratic candidates, who seem to have sort of figured out that they need to attack the right wing noise machine because it will be attacking them. You ask most Democrats what has demotivated them about the party as of late and they will tell you the utter surrender to the radical right wing extremists in the corporate media. They are sick and tired of Democrats being cowardly in the face of people who hate America, so it's time for Democrats to stand up and put the GOP on notice that their time is up, it's time for the adults to take over and get this country back on the right track before their stupidity destroys what we hold dear.

Read more over at CQ Politics, Think Progress and Daily Kos.

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Debunking the NYT's sloppy hit piece on Gore

I've been increasingly amused by people in the corporate media over the last few months as they try desperately to keep the Republican party in absolute power and control of the United States. They grasp desperately at straws hoping if they can just tell one more lie or make one more false accusation that they can bail out their buddies on the radical right. Amusingly by the very same token you have the radical right screaming to the heavens that the media is against them on everything. You can't read this hit piece from the New York Times and not come to the conclusion that the corporate media and the Republican party are one continous entity. The notion of a left wing media is nothing more than Republican mythology. From one end of this country to the other there is one massive push by the corporate media to cover-up, or at least rationalize the radical right wing Republican party's actions at every single turn. These kinds of hit pieces are the flavor dejour for the corporate media these days, actually it harkens back to an early time in corporate media when it was referred to as yellow journalism.

Read more over at Grist and Think Progress.

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March 12, 2007

Braun Thermoscan C to F instructions

So I'm trying to move our thermometer back to Fahrenheit after it mysteriously got changed to Celsius. There is only one button so I sit there and guess all the possible combinations based on previous computer experience. No luck, so I broke down and read the online manual, which has an actual section on the problem. I tried the instructions and they immediately fail. I give up and just figure I'm going to have to convert it in my head. I kept trying variations of the instructions given. Finally I accidentally came upon a combination that works. Here's how it actually works for my own future reference:

Turn off the units power. Hold the power down until the C turns to a F. Let go of the power button when the F appears on the display.

It was all fixed after that. The company instructions make it out that you can do it from inside the display when it's on, but every time I held down the power button it turned the unit off or put it in memory mode. I have no idea why the instructions were written incorrectly, but they were.

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U.S. gas prices up 20 cents over 2 weeks

CAMARILLO, Calif. - Gasoline prices have gone up an average of 20 cents per gallon nationwide in the past two weeks.
The retail price of self-serve regular gas rose to $2.55 cents per gallon, according to the latest Lundberg Survey released Sunday.

As of Friday, a gallon of midgrade gasoline averaged about $2.66, and premium cost nearly $2.76, according to the survey of 7,000 gas stations across the country.

Nationwide, the highest average price for regular gas was $3.10 per gallon in San Francisco. The lowest, at $2.22 per gallon, was in Anchorage, Alaska.

Ouch!! I know it was painful as we were traveling. The price was traveling upwards every day we were on the road. From hour to hour you couldn't predict what price you'd be able to get gas for. It's just March folks! Can you imagine when the Republican Oil Companies start raising prices for their summer price hike? I suspect that we are going to see new record profit numbers for them yet again. I mean don't you feel bad that they are only pulling in 40 billion a quarter??? I imagine we are going to see another spike in Toyota hybrid sales pretty soon even with the Republicans cutting off their tax break. You have the choice of spending your money on a more expensive car or giving your money to the oil companies and the Republican party. In the next election you should keep in mind their efforts to harm your interests in Washington even more. It's a simple choice really and thousands of people are making it everyday.

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March 8, 2007

International Women's Day (IWD)

I know, I'd never heard of it before either, but that's what listening to NPR gets you...A lot of new and interesting information to deal with everyday. It appears that this is a more generalized version of Mother's Day, but instead is just focused on all women and not just mothers, which seems fair to me. The UN has decided that this IWD needs to be focused on the atrocities committed with impunity against women all over the world during times of war.

Definitely a matter of great concern, we live in a world where women are cravenly taken advantage of and used as a commodity by immoral people. It sure seems like we all need to do more to make it right. So do your part today and thank womankind for all their hard work to make this world what it is today. And if you can find a way to decrease their suffering, well you should probably do that everyday and not just today.

Read more over at United Nations and find events at IWD website.

Posted by Jamison at 10:25 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

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pretty cool stuff. i have been in the house all day. shock!!! we're usually always on the go. today i decided to just stay home and do nothing. when i say nothing, yes that means i drank coffee before i brushed my teeth. ok that was gross! :)

Posted by: TANYETTA at March 8, 2007 8:44 PM

February 27, 2007

Toad Hunters Offered Beer Bounty

Australians are freaking awesome! You don't see free beer bounties running around this country now do you! Of course, we don't have rampant invasive species trying to destroy the entire country either. Ours tend be localized disasters. ;) So for your beer drinkers out there here is an once in a life time opportunity to drink yourself silly. I wonder how much beer you'd have to drink to make up the cost of a flight to Australia?

If you aren't aware of the Cane Toad it's a horrible monster. It weights about 8 lbs and of course is totally poisonous. It breeds about 30,000 eggs at a time and does that twice a year. The tadpoles poison kills fish that eat them and all predators in Australia are easily killed by biting these monsters. This is another man made disaster, the Cane Toad wasn't native to Australia it was brought in from South America to deal with a pest in the sugar cane. Now it's trying to take over all of Australia.

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Not needed here; hunters are required to provide their own beer. I think it's actually a requirement for the hunting license.

Posted by: reno at February 28, 2007 8:16 AM

Yet...people still want to introduce non-native species like the Asian Oyster in the Chesapeake Bay.

You would think we would have learned our lesson by now. Apparently not.

Posted by: Robb Black at February 28, 2007 11:28 AM

Scary isn't it? It just shows that those who propose such things either have no concept of ecosystems or food webs, or just don't care.

Posted by: Dianne at February 28, 2007 11:33 AM

February 26, 2007

Just a cowboy at heart?

The other morning I was over at Bob Geiger's site and I saw the above picture of Obama. It takes a special kind of man to pull off wearing a cowboy hat folks. You have to have an inner strength to make it not seem like an act. It appears that Obama is one of those kind of men. So anyway, I flagged this picture for future posting because it left me with a feeling that I'd seen this kind of picture before but I just couldn't put my finger on where. Then it hit me, Cowboy Troy! You be the judge.

Now if Obama can sing country music too, well he's still not got a chance in hell to get a Republican vote, but the connection made me smile. I'd like to see a little more Cowboy Troy in my Obama, then maybe I could get inspired.

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February 25, 2007

So True!

There are only two kinds of scholars; those who love ideas and those who hate them. - Emile Chartier

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February 23, 2007

Fox Attacks

It's pretty much known around the world that Fox is nothing more than the propaganda wing of the Republican party. From the local affiliates on up to the puppet master himself, Fox does nothing but support whatever talking point they get from the Republican party today.

Yet again they've been exposed as nothing more than a partisan hack machine with their fabricated reporting on one of the Democratic Presidential candidates Barak Obama. I'm not even going to to into the hundreds of times that they've just flat out lied to support the radical right wing hate ideology of the Republican party. So we all know this, so why is it important to repeat it now? Fox is slipping rapidly in popularity as the disconnect between the lies they are regularly reporting and what even brain dead conservatives can see on the streets of America gets so far apart that people just stop taking them seriously.

For reasons that baffle good sense the Nevada Democratic party has decided to turn over the first debate of Democratic candidates in their state to Fox. That's right, the claim being that it will be the first time that Fox viewers will have a chance to see an "honest" depiction of Democratic candidates. You will recall in 2004 Democratic Presidential candidates were in a debate covered by Fox, and Fox put up insulting graphics and GOP talking points as the Democrats were talking. Then they went the extra step to cut off the candidates to allow right wing pundits to attack the Democrats at any point in their speeches with the same GOP talking points.

Basically the Nevada Democrats have allowed the GOP to host the first Democratic Debate in Nevada. This verges on insanity of the highest order. Radical extremists that take Fox seriously will NEVER vote Democratic. I go back to the 2006 election quote "I wouldn't vote Democratic if Jesus Christ was running." That sums up just about every Republican watching Fox. There is no way to reach them because they've have abandoned reality folks. It's time for the Nevada Democrats to realize that decent people aren't watching Fox, only the most vile of the vile are watching. Nothing we can say or do will ever be enough for them, all they have is their hate of this country and Democrats to drive them each and every day.

Read more over at Fox Attacks, MyDD and Crooks and Liars.

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he has a really cool name!

Posted by: TANYETTA at February 25, 2007 1:15 AM

From www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser...

The Scoreboard: Friday, February 23
25-54 demographic: (LS)

Total day: FNC: 259 | CNN: 173 | MSNBC: 139 | HLN: 135 | CNBC: 65

Prime: FNC: 369 | CNN: 244 | MSNBC: 142 | HLN: 200 | CNBC: 45

Fox slipping in the ratings?

Nah...But I understand how you could be baffled by that. After all, a majority of people voted for Bush in 2004. Do you know a majority of people who voted for him?

Posted by: Lloyd at February 26, 2007 10:43 PM

Interesting methodology you used there. Showing the current viewership for one week and then indicating it's a trend. An actual look at the numbers over time will show a stead decrease in market share over the last year or so. But good manipulation of the facts to support your ideology there. But if you're defending Fox, you probably have spent a lot of time learning their tricks and techniques.

Posted by: Jamison at February 27, 2007 7:11 AM

February 21, 2007

GA-10: Field Taking Shape for Special

With the death of Charlie Norwood (R), my parent's home district is back in play in Georgia. It appears the Sonny Perdue has done some sneaky scheduling to allow the Republicans in the Georgia legislature to get some advantage in the special election. Which is fine I guess, I've long since given up hope of Republicans doing things in a fair sort of way anywhere they are in control.

Terry Holley, who I blogged about last year is going to get back in to the race, but with his 33% performance against Norwood last year there is some question of the likely success he would have against the next Republican. Two other names are being kicked around are state Rep. Alan Powell and lawyer David Bell. I'm not on the ground, but I find it hard to believe that Alan Powell will give up a good seat for a long shot like this one. David Bell performed the best against Norwood in 1996, losing by only 4 points. One of the problems with the GA-10 is that it was redistricted in the middle of the decade by the corrupt Republicans in the legislature and the district is now a lot more Republican than it use to be, so every Democrat starts out with a distinct disadvantage by design.

It's going to be a tough fight that's for sure. I've noticed that a small Netroots has started to form in the district, so we might have a growing presence in the district that could make things a bit more interesting than even last year. A good candidate that could inspire some Netroots support, with low voter turnout among the lazy Republicans that make up the region could definitely give us a chance to move this seat blue, barring that at least it will give the GOP heartburn and make them burn a few million bucks trying to overcome their own history of incompetence.

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Republicans are screwing up in space

Not a real big surprise to find out given the Republican party's propensity to screw up everything they touch. So no reason to believe after all these years that they would not be making a critical and likely lethal mistake. What's surprising is that John Glenn is saying it out loud. OK, he said it a lot nicer than I did, but it's John Glenn, he's a living legend. Basically he's realized like most of us with more than a passing knowledge of science, that the Republican plan to bleed the space program dry is destroying America's ability to compete in the space races of the future.

I know, the Republican corporate mentality can't imagine anything beyond the next quarter of stealing money for Halliburton in Iraq, but in the next few decades we need to be in space. We need to be getting better at living in space and we need to be prepare to explore space more aggressively, but the urge to take risks and explore the limits of human capacity is a polar opposite of conservative ideology. They dream the world to be static incarnation of the 1950's and if they just believe hard enough China won't be taking our place as the only global super power on the planet.

Our strength comes from space folks, we ignore it at our peril. If we sacrifice that potential to follow the whims of a madman who doesn't understand that there is going to be a future beyond the end of his term in office, we doom our nation for all of time. The next President and Congress is going to have to spend large sums of money to make up for all the horrible mistakes that have been made over the last decade with NASA. I've lectured on the need for a SSTO vehicle before, so I won't rant about that again.

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Fight looms over limiting big rigs to 68mph

On surface this is not very interesting. As we all probably know there are speed governors built into semis that restricts their maximum upper speed. They don't have be turned on mind you, but the technology exists to make it possible. So now some major trucking companies are pushing for having them turned on nationwide. The safety argument is pretty easy to make on this front. F=MxA is an extremely unforgiving formula, especially when it comes to semis. When you have such large masses, the force differences between a few miles per hour difference in acceleration can be pretty deadly. Well it's likely that all altercations between you and a semi are not going to have a happy ending, let's not kid ourselves. Independent truckers says that this is an effort to sneak in larger trucks onto the American highways with the argument that if they travel slower that things will be safer. Now you've seen the larger truck configurations from other countries.

So I think we all agree that bigger trucks are probably not going to be the solution to our traffic congestion problems. So if that is the goal, I agree it should probably be stopped dead in it's tracks, but it's hard not to see the safety concerns that would be solved by limiting the upper speeds (but I have to wonder in states where the speed is greater than 68 would that really be the best choice?).

For me the real question is if we are serious about our speed limit laws (which I think we all know that we aren't), then why don't we have electronic governors on all vehicles that travel on America's highways? I mean if you believe that 55 mph is the best choice, why not tell my car to not let me go faster than that when I pull onto that section of highway. That kind of technology has existed for pretty much as long as the automobile has existed. Why restrict just trucks? Why not restrict all motor vehicles if you believe that these laws have some value in the long run?

Back to the trucks, if you have opinions on the matter, the government is listening for opinions right now. If you want to put in your two cents worth, please feel free to write before March 27 at Docket Management, Room PL-401, 400 Seventh St. S.W. Washington, D.C. 20590. Amazingly only snail mail seems to be a choice.

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Do you think car drivers are going to say, cut down my ability to speed?

Posted by: mums at February 21, 2007 3:44 PM

Nope, Americans are pretty religious about their right to speed down the highway. But it sure seems like they should apply that same view to everyone else's right to speed down the highway, but it would appear that they don't. It's OK for someone else's rights to be taken away, but don't touch mine sort of attitude. It reminds me of the old poem from Germany, which I always heard the Americanized version from the New England Holocaust memorial.

"They came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up."

This is a valuable lesson that we should all internalize. Freedom only works when everyone has it. If we give away someone else's freedom we give away our own.

Posted by: Jamison at February 23, 2007 9:47 AM

February 20, 2007

Australia to ban incandescent bulbs

SYDNEY, Australia - Australia will be the world's first country to ban incandescent lightbulbs in a bid to curb greenhouse gas emissions, with the government saying on Tuesday they would be phased out within three years and replaced by compact fluorescent lighting.
By 2009, Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull told local radio, "you simply won't be able to buy incandescent lightbulbs, because they won't meet the energy standard."

Legislation to gradually restrict the sale of the old-style bulbs could reduce Australia's greenhouse gas emissions by 4 million tons by 2012 and cut household power bills by up to 66 percent, said Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Now that's what I'm talking about folks! People that are serious about saving the world take serious action to save it. CFL's provide a massive advantage to the end user. Changing nothing about a lighting fixture, you reduce energy consumption by 2/3rds. It's hard to argue with changes like that. If every American put one of these bulbs in their most used light fixture in their house, we would cut energy consumption in this country to the point that we could power another 2.5 million homes without changing anything about the way we do things. Dianne and I have started speeding up the replacement process of all the bulbs in our house. At first we were replacing bulbs as they burned out, now we are the point that we are just replacing them all no matter what. If you want to help make America a better place, you should get on replacing all the bulbs in your house. And remember that these bulbs throw off 1/4 of the heat of a regular bulb, so you can put a lot higher lumen bulb in places you used to not be able to.

Oh and you'll hear doubters screaming that LED lights are even better, so your better off waiting until they are cheap to do the replacement. That LED's use 1/5 the energy of CFL, generate no heat at all, last 10 times longer than CFL, but right now cost 20 to 40 times as much per bulb. I point you back to the 2.5 million homes with just one light bulb. LED bulbs are better, but it's sort of like waiting for the hydrogen economy to buy a fuel efficient car. There will always be something better if you wait long enough, but the question is what will it cost you in the mean time not to make the right decision. You'll need to replace the CFL's in a decade or so maybe, why not upgrade then? If you get these things in bulk, they are as light as a dollar to a dollar and a half a piece. And I'm sure if you go online you could probably even get better than that. But we can all do this now and those that can't should be given a hand to be able to afford the upgrade.

[via AMERICABlog]

Read more over at MSNBC and EnergyStar.gov.

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February 12, 2007

Cow Power and more

One of the major problems we have in this country isn't that we've lacked resources, but our problem has been for too many years we had too many. It made us lazy about looking for ways to economize what we had. One of the key ways to improve things is to look at our by-products and use them in new an interesting ways. In this case we have a story about the state of Vermont taking advantage of a waste by-product from their dairy farmers, cow manure, and developing it into a natural resource that can be used by all of us. Before you think this isn't a useful enterprise, realize that a dairy they can spend 200 dollars a year per cow on waste disposal. That's big money folks no matter how you slice it! So when you can turn that waste disposal cost into a profitable enterprise you are definitely making progress to say the least.

In Vermont they appear to be able to power their entire farm and still sell the remaining three quarters of the available electricity to power to the grid. Environmentally this is great because it cuts your release of methane, which is 20 times worse as a green house gas than Carbon dioxide. Also this process allows you to split the fertilizer portion of the manure from the sterilized plant by-product, so you have a pure fertilizer to use on your fields. The uses of the sterilized plant by-product produced some interesting side products.

If you watched the show "Dirty Jobs" this season, on January 16th, he did an episode on making pottery with the sterilized plant by-product, which is an interesting idea. The Vermont folks said they used it for bedding for the cows, which is a very practical immediate use for the material, but today I came across an extremely interesting use of the material, as a building material. I know what you're thinking, but it's sterilized so it doesn't smell, it's just like sawdust. They were experimenting at Michigan State with using it to make particle board. Now what's exciting is that the plant fibers appear to lock together better than the sawdust creating a superior strength for particle board.

So we are all winners right? Nope the schmucks over at the The Engineered Wood Association claims there will never be a market for it and it will die. We have an estimated 1 to 2 trillion tons of animal waste produced a year in the US alone. Do I need to do the math for you on how much better off we could be if we were using it in productive ways. Building materials aren't cheap folks, there could be some major money in this. This is a way we could definitely help ourselves out by taking advantage of our supplies to cut our need for non-renewable supplies.

I'm glad to see state's like Vermont stepping up to make it possible. I'd love to see a national program to help get these kinds of systems set up everywhere we could. I was asked an interesting question when I was talking about it around the water cooler: How does it react to water? Anyone who's worked with particle board knows that water is death for its effectiveness as a building material. So yes, I've harassed the poor folks at the agricultural department to see if they could find out for me. Idle chatter around the water cooler must not be ignored. ;)

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Mystery Ailment Strikes Honeybees

I thought the varroa mite was bad news, but now it appears that there are worse things afoot in the bee world. Evidently bee hives have just started dying off randomly. Researchers have named it Colony Collapse Disorder, but I don't know that it's a good name for something that can only be considered some strange voodoo. It's already spread to 22 states and has about a 50% colony fatality rate. Here are the clues that researchers have to work with currently.

* Although the bodies of dead bees often are littered around a hive, sometimes carried out of the hive by worker bees, no bee remains are typically found around colonies struck by the mystery ailment. Scientists assume these bees have flown away from the hive before dying.
* From the outside, a stricken colony may appear normal, with bees leaving and entering. But when beekeepers look inside the hive box, they find few mature bees taking care of the younger, developing bees.

* Normally, a weakened bee colony would be immediately overrun by bees from other colonies or by pests going after the hive's honey. That's not the case with the stricken colonies, which might not be touched for at least two weeks, said Diana Cox-Foster, a Penn State entomology professor investigating the problem.

The first one is the most bizarre from my experiences with bees. The third one is even scarier if you think about it, because it would almost lead you to believe that there is something in the hive that is scaring off scavengers for some period of time.

This has major national security implications in case you are wondering why it's crossing my radar. Insect pollination of our food crops gives us an agricultural advantage that allows us to feed ourselves cheaply and efficiently. Reduce the number of bee hives, it decreases our ability to have record crop production. Very bad stuff for America.

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Evidence Grows That White House Planned To Release Cooked Intel On

Tragically it's become readily apparent that this is the plan of the Republican party. They are going to expand the war in the middle east to include Iran so people will stop focusing on the utter failure they've been in Iraq. The latest polling of Americans tells me that I'm in the majority of Americans that believe that the GOP is so desperate to cover up their failure in Iraq that they will invade Iran within the year. Of course my military mind is baffled to explain, and Senator Webb joins me on this concern, how we hope to actually hold or control three times as much territory and twice the population, and a military that held the best the Iraqi army had at bay. But the GOP can not be dissuaded. They seem to have dreams of igniting their entire middle east against us. They've moved a third carrier group into the Gulf. Given that the Iranians are doing better work against Al Qaeda operatives than the GOP, you'd think they'd stop trying to provoke war against them. But last week we see them traipse out what can only be described in the kinds terms as circumstantial evidence to link Al Qaeda and Iran.

I have no faith left in anyone in the GOP given their behavior in Congress lately, so now everything really depends on the Democrats alone. But you never know what the treacherous DLC/New Democrat group is going to do, they love the GOP so much and the money from their corrupt campaign contributors, you never know where they will land on saving the Republic from these madmen. If you're the praying sort you probably should. It's going to get really nasty this year.

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February 10, 2007

Zogby Poll question today.

This year Daylight Savings Time has been extended 4 weeks in an effort to encourage energy conservation. (Clocks will "spring forward" three weeks earlier and "fall back" one week later). Some are people are anxious about a Y2K-type of crisis, anticipating that planes will run late, gadgets won't synch with each other, and public services will be unexpectedly suspended among other emergencies.
When you think of this event, are you:

Excited, looking forward to more daylight and the chance to conserve energy
Anxious, preparing for Y2K-like predictions
Relaxed, I haven't thought about it
Unaffected, I live in a community that doesn't observe Daylight Savings Time
They're doing what?
Not sure

Dianne and I had a good laugh about this one. Daylight Savings time happens all the the time and the Y2K problem was a unique situation caused by people cutting corners to save space on computers back in the 60's. You don't have to be a computer programmer to notice the difference. The problem only comes about if business people are too lazy to upgrade and modernize with the times. If you want to stay up at night worrying about something, start worrying about 3:14:07 a.m. on Jan. 19, 2038. Now that could actually cause some problems. Daylight savings time, will likely just annoy you at worst. The Friday 13th Bug might take down the Internet and God knows we can't live without that. ;)

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We got busy yesterday.

Our school site has been down for several days, so yesterday it came back up and we were busy catching up on school assignments and posting them. We are always slackerish on the weekend, I need to finish up a paper and then I'll try and catch up on everything I've been meaning to talk about for the last couple of days.

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February 8, 2007

I am Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus

I know what your thinking, "No Jamison, you are Jamison. Dear God he's slipped completely off the deep end." Bear with me for a moment, I promise I will make sense in a little bit. First, why did this thought come into my head. I was in my fourth meeting of the day on Thursday, I'd been in one meeting or another for 5 hours at that point doing planning of one sort or another for either work or politics. So my brain was a little bit tired at that point and I was asked what I would have normally treated as a rhetorical question, what are your political ambitions. My answer is always the same, None. But my exhausted brain suddenly connected two pieces of data that had alluded me completely up until that point. Now for a quick history lesson for those of you that went to an American educational institution.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus was a Roman dictator, appointed by the Senate after the current dictator of Rome and the entire Roman army had been captured by one of the barbaric tribes. Lucius was a farmer and who as the story goes was plowing in his field when he was informed that he had been given absolute authority over the Roman people to ensure the safety of the Republic for six months. He knew that leaving his crops untended could lead to hardship for his family, but he answered the higher calling and set about to defend Rome from her enemies. What makes him impressive is that it only took him 16 days to defeat the enemies of Rome, at which time he yielded all the authority he had been given back to the Senate and went back to tend his fields.

Which brings us back to the modern day and why I cause the radical right wingnuts heartburn. None of them seem to know that I have no long term political ambition, this is not what I want to do with my life. I don't stay awake at night plotting my next chance to grab power and move up the chain. I personally despise politics, it's dirty work and by all measures beneath me. I was asked to defend my country from a evil cancer that has descended upon it. Like my father before me, I left my life of quiet solitude and went to do battle with the enemies of the Republic. For me this is all the simple exercise of morality, I fight the bad guys because I have too. But for the radicals it's a baffling thing, because I don't hold back and don't triangulate like Democratic politicians. Mainly it's because I'm not one. I don't have to talk in half measures because I don't have to make it back to the "center" for election day. Trust me, I'm equally despised by the Establishment Democrats as I am by the radical extremists that make up the Republican party. It's because I lack the moral relativism that defines both of them. Right and wrong are easy for me to distinguish, just like it is for most Americans that aren't politicians. It doesn't profit me to have my beliefs change with the wind, because then I wouldn't believe in anything at all. In the market place of ideas, I have no fear that my stands on any issue would make it impossible for most Americans to call me a fellow citizen. In the end, America is about pleasing 50% +1 voter, I could care less about pleasing extremists on either side of the aisle, I'd rather stand with the American people and preserve the Republic.

So for those that spend their nights fretting about why can't he just give up and become a cowardly politician, I have to tell you it's not in my DNA. I'm a soldier, I fight, it's just all I do, it's all I know how to do. Moral certainty is an offensive thing to those without it, and for that all I can do is apologize that you are deficient. But even if I were the last American left on the planet, I would still gravitate back towards the principals of our founding in a world of total chaos, because it's just who I am. No amount of money or time can change that reality, and believing otherwise is a fool errand at best and jousting with windmills at worst. I believe Theodore Roosevelt said it best "If a man does not have an ideal and try to live up to it, then he becomes a mean, base and sordid creature, no matter how successful." I think our friends on the radical right have confused power for principal and have confused what's good for themselves and what good for the Republic. America was founded as a liberal democracy, crazy liberal ideas like one man, one vote are written into the constitution. We stood up to kings, monopolies, and dictators to build this great country and we will not be abandoning those principals anytime soon no matter what the radical right wants us to do. America has stumbled from time to time through out her history giving in to our baser fears and desires, but we've always stood back up and stood for something again. The rise of the radical Conservative movement is no different a stumble.

In the end, I will be the best American I can be. I strongly believe that living by the principals that made this country great, will lead us back to greatness. I'm confident that the people of America, want to get back to our greatness. And despite the GOP's continuous assertions to the contrary, I'm confident that the American people will know the difference between rhetoric and ideology. I will be Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus and stand by my nation even when all others seek to abandon it.

Posted by Jamison at 10:38 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

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Jamison, that was well put and I couldn't agree more.

I just want to say that anyone who sides with Bush and the Republican party as we are seeing it today are vile. They are totally deluded and vile. After all of the lies we have been told by this administration I just can't respect anyone who sides with Bush and the neocon wing of the Republican party. Before Hurricane Katrina I could maybe have a semi-adult discussion with them. But after witnessing Bush's behavior during the Katrina Fiasco I don't know how anyone with any sense of moral decency can side with that man. Anyone who thinks Bush and the Republican congress is doing anything but failing this country is just seriously deluded and I have absolutely no respect for them.

Sorry to get on my soapbox. I did a little prowling around on the web over the weekend and found myself on some neocon blogger's sites and was just seriously digusted to the core.

You and Dianne are doing good work over here. Keep it up! :)

Posted by: Moni at February 13, 2007 3:32 PM

February 6, 2007

Headline Commentary

I'm going to try something slightly different today. During these off periods of politics, most stories don't warrant a real blog post, because well I can't think of more than a single sentence worth of commentary about them. So I'm going to try to put all the commentary together and see what you think about it.

Nader Considering Another Bid

Nader says that if Hillary wins, he's running. Trust me, he'll run no matter who the Democratic nominee ends up being. Time and again we've seen that the Green party is nothing more than a wholly owned subsidiary of the state GOP. Nader is running, the GOP desperately needs him because of their terrible crop of candidates for President.

In FL-22, Schlesinger Eyes House Seat

Yeah, the Republican candidate from Connecticut is thinking about running for a House seat in Florida. I had to do a double take on it too. Tragically the GOP in Florida could do a lot worse and regularly do.

Huckabee Will Give it Six Months

Honestly there is only one name on the GOP's list that scares me as a Democrat and it's Huckabee. He's the only genuine old school Republican on the slate. Any Democratic candidate we have (even Kucinich) will mop the floor with every other Republican that's running, except for Huckabee. The only Democrat that will be able to stand toe to toe with Huckabee would be Edwards. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the GOP is too radical to realize that they have a genuine candidate on their slate and vote for the crazies instead.

Republican Field Leads in Divorces

See the GOP is already racking up major victories, but the be fair Guliani represents nearly half of the total divorces for the GOP. The religious right is sabre rattling about if Guliani wins, they won't vote this time. Much like the Republicans in the Senate, principled stands aren't these people's strong suit, they'll vote Republican even if it were a candidate whose very existence was their moral opposite like Larry Flint. The only "values" these voters have is that they value what the GOP has done to this country. On a side note, when Kucinich drops out the Democratic divorce rate drops by 2/3rds, so we are golden there.

Specter (R-PA) says his staff was responsible for inserting that US Attorney provision into the Patriot Act.

Isn't it amazing how Republicans do all sorts of bad things, but they are never responsible for anything they do. I can't decide which aspect of this lie scares me more the fact that a Senator is so clueless about what his staff is doing that they are writing legislation without his knowledge or that Republicans are such craven liars that they would impune their staff members to protect themselves from the liability for their misdeeds for this imperial President.

Budget cuts may delay shuttle replacement

I figured with the corporate media breathless discussion of a Astronaut love triangle, there was probably real news going on that we weren't suppose to be paying attention to. Sure enough, not enough money to get the shuttle replacement up and running. Beyond the fact that the shuttle replacement they have is a moronic idea, it's just bad because it's likely to mean half a decade without space faring available to Americans except as passengers on other people's spacecraft. The Chinese seem serious about space, perhaps we can hitch a ride with them. Oh wait, the Republicans pushing for the weaponization of space has caused them to be a more aggressive space power. I sure hope they don't take Republican incompetence as an opening to gain the lead in space technologies, I'm sure they won't think of that.

Haggard Pronounced 'Completely Heterosexual'

Well that's great news for Ted. I have to say I find it odd, that they say he should move because there is an open wound in Colorado at his old church. Where's all that vaunted Christian forgiveness? Seems to me if he's "cured", he should get his old job back.

Posted by Jamison at 4:54 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

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Re: Your comments about Nader

Just in case you missed it in 2006, Nader wasn't the Green Party candidate. Also, I doubt he'll be the Green Party candidate in 2010. The Greens will run a candidate for president however since ballot access laws in some states require a presidential candidate.

Posted by: Robb Black at February 12, 2007 10:32 AM

Well it was a discussion about Presidential politics so since 2006 isn't divisible by 4, of course he wasn't a candidate and he won't be in 2010, also a non-divisible by 4 election year. The Greens will have a candidate because the GOP will pay for their ballot access in as many states as Earthly possible.

Posted by: Jamison at February 12, 2007 1:47 PM

You are correct. I was off a few years in my comment. Nader was a Green Party candidate in 2000. He was NOT the candidate in 2004, and yes we will have a candidate in 2008 (but it probably will not be him) because as I mentioned before, the Greens need to have a presidential candidate in certain states in order to obtain ballot access to run candidates for other offices in that state.

You take one example of PA and then try to extrapolate it to the rest of the Green Parties around the country. The Maryland Green Party has successfully petitioned to be a political party three consecutive times now. Each time it was an all volunteer effort. No one was paid for their time or paid to organize the petition drive for the Green Party to remain a political party in Maryland.

Posted by: Robb Black at February 13, 2007 3:52 PM

So you have 100% confidence that if I go digging into the Green Party ballot drive process, I'm not going to find the Republican party? Even with Kevin Zeese being the spokesman for Nadar in 2004, said there was nothing wrong with right wing groups getting the Green party on the ballot with the express goal of swinging a blue state? The same guy that was the Maryland Senate candidate for the Green party in Maryland in 2006? Do we really want to go down that road? I personally don't think the Greens are fundamentally bad people, I just think they have troubles with realizing that a bad Democrat is better than the best Republicans. I think the Democrats will always be slightly out of step with the Greens, but in the end I think we have enough in common with each other that some sort of compromise can be made for our collective children's sake. Because as much as we disagree, we can all agree that there is no Republican that would represent any of our collective interests.

Posted by: Jamison at February 13, 2007 4:25 PM

You can witch hunt all you want. *rolls eyes* One would hope you would have better things to do with your time than engage in witch hunts however.

Posted by: Robb Black at February 13, 2007 11:03 PM

I do have better things to do. I do stand corrected on the Nader in 2004 being a Green. Dianne proved you were right on that one. I will correct my future rhetoric on the subject accordingly. Except the Pennsylvania case, it appears all other efforts of the Green party working with the Republicans are related to Nader himself. Maybe then you've just got a few bad apples in your ranks giving the entire movement a bad name. I'm personally a fan of the IRV that the Greens support, I think it would help streamline a lot of elections. If we can get past the mistrust that appears to have been fostered by Nader, I think there are a lot of things we can do to make this country a better place to live while working against our common enemy at the GOP.

Posted by: Jamison at February 15, 2007 11:20 AM

Republicans refuse to question Bush

As I had been saying for weeks, no surprise here. When the time came for the Republicans to stand up for their country and their constituents, they instead put Bush above all that. It doesn't matter what happens to the United State, the GOP wants to push forward with their radicalized agenda no matter what is costs the country. And remember all those dramatic speeches and the right wing media's coverage of the "principled" GOP members of Congress that were standing up and going to hold the President accountable, they decided to cave on actually doing their jobs. Ironic that Hagel and Warner, "pillars" of the independent mind GOP, voted against their own freaking resolution to challenge to President, because they couldn't bring themselves in the end to actually question their party's own insanity. Harry Reid says there will be an accounting for this kind of behavior in the long run.

If you're a voter remember it's these very Senators that have betrayed their constitutionally assigned duty to be a check on an out of control Executive branch to protect the rights of the American people. 22 Republican seats are up for replacement folks, remember how spineless the GOP is when you're at the ballot box in 2008.
Actually, send a little money to your favorite GOP replacement candidates via ActBlue right now, even if they haven't declared yet you can put money into their future campaign to defeat some incompetent GOP schmuck that isn't doing their job representing your interests.

Read more over at Daily Kos and donate at ActBlue Senate page.

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February 5, 2007

Dianne is under the weather

So I'm flying without an editor today taking care of Alexis. I've been trying to catch up on school work while Alexis is "napping". It's 18 degrees outside, but with a 16 mile an hour wind it feels like 3 degrees. And I just went to get the mail and I have to say they aren't joking about that that 3 degrees even a little bit. I'll be posting some things I've been looking at in a little bit after I get Alexis up and fed.

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January 22, 2007

Answering the Question

I was thinking about Dianne's underlying question...What is it about us that seems to attract the most vile and disgusting people out of the woodwork desperate to challenge us? So I started making a list of the characteristics of the people that end up banned and I ran them through a Google search. And one type of person came up over and over again...A Bully. They have a very predictable targeting criterion:

* bullies are predatory and opportunistic - you just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time; this is always the main reason - investigation will reveal a string of predecessors, and you will have a string of successors
* being good at your job, often excelling

* being popular with people (colleagues, customers, clients, pupils, parents, patients, etc)

* more than anything else, the bully fears exposure of his/her inadequacy and incompetence; your presence, popularity and competence unknowingly and unwittingly fuel that fear

* being the expert and the person to whom others come for advice, either personal or professional (ie you get more attention than the bully)

* having a well-defined set of values which you are unwilling to compromise

* having a strong sense of integrity (bullies despise integrity, for they have none, and seem compelled to destroy anyone who has integrity)

* having at least one vulnerability that can be exploited

* being too old or too expensive (usually both)

* refusing to join an established clique

* showing independence of thought or deed

* refusing to become