Life is a State of Mind

If you are a Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Fray, Firefly, Serenity, and soon Dollhouse), you probably already know about Can’t Stop the Serenity, let this just be a reminder to you that it’s this weekend in many places.

Closest to me is Arlington, Virginia at the Cinema ‘n Drafthouse. Tonight at 9:30 and tomorrow at 4:30. Sadly I cannot attend as I will be hosting a La Belle event, but if you can you should go. The funds raised go to Equality Now (Joss’s favorite charity). It’s a lot of fun. If you are not a Buffy or Firefly fan already, I strongly urge you to drop everything, run out and buy the DVD boxed sets and catch up with the rest of the world. Best television series ever. Mine is an evil laugh!

How bizarre is it that the only places I am reading about Congressman Kucinich introducing 35 articles of impeachment to congress last night are on blogs like BoingBoing and LiberalRage?

I thought perhaps I’d simply missed this important news on the many news sites I scan daily…
So I rechecked NY Times, CNN, LA Times, BBC, CBS, ABC, NBC… nope. They all suck. They are ignoring this important news.

Hello world of Orwell, hope you are enjoying this beautiful morning drinking your coffee on the back patio as I am…

Well, at least C-Span has the coverage, and thank goodness for Congressman Kucinich, impeachment of this treasonous, law-breaking administration is the better part of a decade overdue. Impeach, have a public trial with criminal charges, force a step down. It would be much cooler to do that twice (Bush and Cheney) and see Pelosi sworn in only to hand power over to Obama than to allow the smirking chimp to continue his delusional pretense that he’s done a passable job.

Now, about that 4th estate… they should have their spectrum access to public frequencies revoked and only re-issued once they prove they will do a decent job reporting the news!

An Italian boyfriend of a Virginia woman is being held (for 10 days and counting) simply for wanting to visit his girlfriend? He broke no laws, is not a suspected terrorist, has not overstayed his visa, and has a history of visiting and leaving on time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/us/14visa.html

Wow - there is a special hell reserved for those who… … …

Update: correct an error on my part where I thought he was a husband to a Virginia wife. They are not married, not that this makes much difference.

As of May 7th at 10:30am Eastern the Democratic Nomination results are:

Source: Real Clear Politics

Doing the math, there are only 217 remaining pledged delegates in WV, KY, OR, SD, MT, and PR.
Also, only 268.5 super delegates remain uncommitted.

Note: RCP rounds .5 up to the nearest whole number. Half-delegates do matter, so I put them in as .5 instead of up one to nearest whole.

Here is the rub, even though it is a pleasant spin cycle for the next week our fickle and non-journalistic media will turn on Obama from the 13th through the 1st of June because Clinton will likely have more wins, more delegates, and more votes in the upcoming states/territories through Puerto Rico on the 1st of June.

Just like last night was not really a huge surprise, and nor was Pennsylvania; neither will West Virginia, Kentucky, and Puerto Rico…. Obama will snag between 103 and 106 of those delegates (Oregon being the least well known and most unpredictable) and Clinton will appear to gain momentum again by snagging between 111 and 114 delegates from those same races and winning apparently huge margins in West Virginia and Kentucky. The media and the spin doctors will have a field day saying she has pulled ahead again… just like they are all having a field day about last night…

Unless a candidate drops out, or huge numbers of super delegates decide; this race continues with ever diminishing returns and fewer surprises that matters. It was decided long ago, this process is important, but just the proof of what the mathematicians knew the morning of March 19th. Obama will be the nominee, and likely, our next President. Predicted, by me, back on March 20th.

Ignore the spin cycles, do the math. Help us find real journalists who are doing more than simply watching the apparent tennis match with their heads flipping back and forth in am amusing fashion.

To be fair, it was a surprise last night, a small and pleasant one. Obama seems to have grabbed 2-4 more delegates than predicted from the combined Indiana and North Carolina primaries….

180 delegates to win!

I just cut my tab feed for washingtonpost.com because their site has resorted to pop-under advertising.

Pop-up advertising is annoying as hell, but at least it is honest and ethical.
Pup-under ads hide in the background, behind your main browser window and try to trick you into clicks and options that are less than honest.

The Post stopped being a really reliable source for news some time ago, so it is no great loss, but the pop-unders is a last straw. Axed.

Update: Gah, turns out that the International Herald Tribune (iht.com) has started this same disgusting pop-under activity. Axing the IHT hurts more as they have been an excellent source of news from a European and South Asian perspective. They are affiliated with the New York Times; I wonder how long it will take NYT to go all slimy too? This makes two sources of news cut today… not a good day.

I woke up to Newschannel 8 this morning with a start when I heard the words “Bull Run Mountain” in the same story with some sort of crime. I was too foggy headed at first, but that work me up because I live on Bull Run Mountain, so this story is very local.

Once I was thoroughly awake, I found the story here:
http://news8.net/news/stories/1007/466704.html (warning, News8 has lots of cookies and occasionally pop-under java scripts - grrrr)

Brief summary: A local African-American family found a noose hanging from a tree in their own front yard Wednesday afternoon. The noose was hung from a branch approximately 40 feet up the tree, so it took some substantial effort to put it there.

This is horrifying.

Continue Reading »

Josh Marshall says it quite succinctly on Talking Points Memo:

Only one party has a nationwide campaign to deliver millions of intentionally-harassing calls disguised to appear that they’re from the opposite party. That party is the Republican party. And the calls are funded by the NRCC — the House GOP election committee.

It’s the party of election subversion. Deal with it.

In the distant past the Republican party stood for abolition and the rights of the individual in the face of corporate interests. That was a Republican party worth fighting for. More recently the Republican party shifted to being about economic prosperity. That was a party worth accepting representation from. Today the Republican party is all about stealing democracy and and elections, this Republican party is about bigotry, racism, fear, gay-bashing, and hatred. This Republican party deserves zero votes.

In case you have not heard, the news is chock full of widespread reports of voter-suppression and storm-trooper election tactics, all perpetrated by the Republican party. Go vote Democratic. If you cannot do that, vote Green or Libertarian, or Independent, or Constitution or anything but not Republican.

Update: Washington Post has information with links to DC, Mayland, and Virginia voting information.

The more Jeffrey Feldman I read, the more and more I like what he writes. He has an excellent article about why the Lamont victory is so important for American democracy.

It’s not about the war. It’s not about any referendum on President Bush. Please don’t believe the spin that has been accepted by the main stream media.

It’s about participatory politics, the politics of inclusion and participation. Where every American can get involved and have a say in their government. Where the candidate is willing to actually listen to the people he or she plans to represent.

Please take the time to really read Jeffrey’s article: Lamont and the 3 Ps of Progressive Politics (it’s useful knowledge for both progressives and conservatives). An involved public, a public with a stake in the outcome, is a far more powerful force than any top-down hierarchy.

This why I am so excited by the three upsets in Democratic primary elections this year. Tester (MT), Webb (VA), and Lamont (CT). Each represents a grassroots and participatory victory over the official party establishment. Each has exciting possibilities of their own. Lowell over at RaisingKaine has done a better analysis of this than me, so check out his RK diary: Lamont, Tester and Webb.

These are real “underdog” campaigns, so if you like what you see, get involved. Volunteer, contribute, tell your friends you what you like about the campaigns. We have a chance to retake control of our country. The United States has been “by the lobbyists for the corporations and corporate executives” for way too long, let’s get back to “by the people, for the people” again.

Democracy only works if you are involved. If you are eligible to vote, register to vote now! Find out who is running in your area (politics1.com can help) and volunteer in a local congressional or senate race. Get your state board of elections to tell you everything that will be on your ballot well ahead of the election day so you have plenty of time to do a little research and make informed choices.

Less than 5 miles from my house, a horrible hate crime was committed against a gay couple new to the area. It is a shame this has happened, a shame on all Virginians. We are quickly becoming the laughing stock of the nation with our crazy legislature more interested in what happens in your bedroom than in running the schools, keeping the roads open, and the lights on.

I have read a lot of stories lately about gay and lesbian people moving out of Virginia, and I am worried about the future of the state where citizens no longer feel safe or welcome. Please reach out to your neighbors and welcome and embrace them as human beings. It does not matter what color, religion, sexual or political orientation they are. Connect with them. Help them be happy. It’s contagious, in a good way.

Vote NO in November.

Offer to help your neighbors out from time to time.

Mike Leavitt is just the latest miserable example of a tradition that dates all the way back to the American Revolution in the late 18th century and perhaps even longer. Wealthy and powerful Americans are experts at dodging their taxes, and once again the rich get richer while the rest be damned.

I want to rant about this more later, but now is not the time.

I am just pissed this is not getting more attention in the main stream media, clearly they are more interested in Lebanon (understandable), a Medieval book of psalms (personally fascinating, but newsworthy?), sex offenders, gay marriage, teen violence, and the weather! Sorry, MSM, but Leavitt needs a little more scrutiny.