What Could Possibly Be Said?

The moving of Chris Goff will have a profound impact on my life; felt in ways both immediate and unforeseeable. I know that my life will be immeasurable poorer not having his wisdom, counsel, and humor close to me when I need them.

Now, if only someone would invest some sort of electronic diary-type device that would allow us to remain in contact despite physical distance.

"Rage Boy"

I am in no way endorsing the politics of this site, but I did find the idea of "Rage Boy" kind of funny.

Professional Protester, Jihadi-style � snapped shot

Obama Ringtones

That's right. Ringtones.

He Is a Rock, He Is an Island

Via the Bellperson and ABC:

Vice President Dick Cheney has asserted his office is not a part of the executive branch of the U.S. government, and therefore not bound by a presidential order governing the protection of classified information by government agencies, according to a new letter from Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., to Cheney.

Is It Just Me?

Or is sweaty nut-sack guy's heart just not in it since the students left?

Summer Solstice

I marked the solstice with my good friend Chris Goff and about twenty other science and history geeks this afternoon. What did you do?

Setting a Low Threshold

Overheard outside the bookstore...

"...oh, no, I mean there's diversity here, but not where I live, out in Santa Clara."

Yes, But Who Weeps for the American Landmass?

WALK IN MY SHOES

All my life I've had to bite my tongue when Oct. 12 came around because of the romantic delusions that a certain cross-section of the population has with Christopher Columbus. But the last few years have been very traumatic for me. Between 2002 and 2004 Lewis and Clark was the focus of celebration, despite the fact that event led to the mass murder of native people as well as environmental devastation. This year in Virginia marked the 400 years of the colonization of the Southern territories, so the first reaction by the arrogant descendants of those invaders is to once again "celebrate," despite the fact of the legacy of slavery and mass murder that followed. I have decided to celebrate an event that is very humiliating to the Caucasian population.

Sept. 11 will be my holiday, for I have the right to admire "questionable figures and events" as well. Osama bin Laden in reality is a valiant revolutionary who has the courage to stand up to an overwhelmingly violent and ambitious force whose only goal is to seize control of all indigenous recourses. Mr. bin Laden is the George Washington, Geronimo and Sitting Bull of the 21st century. He did not start this war; that dubious honor goes to the U.S. This so called terrorist, as he is so commonly referred to by the Western world, has the courage to stand up to this "white entity" with conviction. The 19 brave fighters, like the colonial militia or the many other colorful heroes of Americas past, laid down their lives to strike a punishing blow to the very symbol of American imperialism.

I also must not forget to give a salute to the brave Iraqi resistance who are fighting a life and death struggle against the modern day conquistadors who are trying to plunder their country of its natural resources. All in order to feed the gluttonous appetite of a "mega-consumer society" and force them to assimilate into a foreign system of ideology. Someone who has limited arms and has to resort to using his body as a bomb is a coward to the West, but dropping a bomb from three miles in the sky or firing a cruise missile from a thousand miles out in the ocean is a heroic act. How arrogant this culture is.

Now I'm sure I have infuriated most of the reading audience. Congratulations! You have walked in my shoes.

Wyona Wolf, Cottage Grove

Race and Gender

Sometimes you run across stuff like this and it reminds you that some weird-ass shit goes down in this world.

Pornography and alcohol will be banned for Aborigines in Australia's Northern Territory, the country's prime minister, John Howard, announced today, after a report found that "rivers of grog" were leading to rampant child abuse.

"This is a national emergency," Mr Howard told parliament. "We're dealing with a group of young Australians for whom the concept of childhood innocence has never been present."

The sale, possession and transportation of alcohol would be banned for six months on Aboriginal-owned land in the Northern Territory, Mr Howard said, and sales would be reviewed after that.

'Course, I feel compelled to offer this, just so as no one thinks that I am under the impression that things here in the US are hunky-dory.

[A] Nebraska district judge, Jeffre Cheuvront, suddenly finds himself in a war of words with attorneys on both sides of a sexual assault trial. More worrisome, he appears to be at war with language itself, and his paradoxical answer is to ban it: Last fall, Cheuvront granted a motion by defense attorneys barring the use of the words rape, sexual assault, victim, assailant, and sexual assault kit from the trial of Pamir Safi—accused of raping Tory Bowen in October 2004.

Subliminal

Give this the 6.5 minutes. I know you all, it's summer, you've got nothing better to do.

Libby

I want to see Scooter burn go to jail as much as the next Bush hater, but my main thing right now is wondering how come all these brilliant legal, political, and journalistic minds can't care even one-tenth as much about a guy on death row whose lawyer fell asleep at trial.

Live Blogging the A*T-Or*g*n "Costing Out Proposals and Contracts" Training

Highlight the cell. Hit the AutoSum key. Press enter. Highlight the cell. Copy. Past to the next six columns. Press enter.

How long can this take? 15 minutes and running for my colleagues. I shit you not. I sit here listening to the people chatting in Salem and I can only shake my head. How in this world could you have possibly reformated the entire sheet while trying to carry out the above task?

Live Blogging the A*T-Or*g*n "Costing Out Proposals and Contracts" Training

Now debating the advantages/disadvantages of having a large number of steps in your contract. I think the consensus is against a large number of steps. I think we just came out against seniority.

Live Blogging the A*T-Or*g*n "Costing Out Proposals and Contracts" Training

Catch 22...am hearing some awesome stuff, but so good that blogging it might get me in trouble. Let's just say that, apparently, bargaining is not won on the streets. Wob, why did you lie to me?

Live Blogging the A*T-Or*g*n "Costing Out Proposals and Contracts" Training

Apparently I was supposed to receive a file with excel sheets to download. I did not. Getting up at 7 am...wasted. Ah, technology.

Live Blogging the A*T-Or*g*n "Costing Out Proposals and Contracts" Training

8:35 am...getting started. On a Saturday.

Live Blogging the A*T-Or*g*n "Costing Out Proposals and Contracts" Training

I'm remote training from the GTFF office, so I can screw around. Most people are in Salem. The phone reception sounds as if they may be in Tibet. In an airport. I am set to learn how to use Excel sheets! Exciting!

Echo Chambering, Just for You

Snow: President Bush Is ‘On The Frontlines’ Of The Iraq War ‘Every Day’

In today’s White House press briefing, reporter Helen Thomas asked Tony Snow if there are “any members of the Bush family or this administration in this war.” Stunningly, Snow claimed that President Bush is actually on the “frontlines” of the war in Iraq:

Q: Are there any members of the Bush family or this administration in this war?

SNOW: Yeah, the President. The President is in the war every day.

Q: Come on, that isn’t my question –

SNOW: Well, no, if you ask any president who is a commander in chief –

Q: On the frontlines, wherever…

SNOW: The President.

Watch it

Whither Watch? [Update]

Have you all caught the "Bush had his watch stolen in Albania" story?

Video here.

Brian Williams crushes my dreams and renders my blog useless. Bush took the watch off himself.

Why Unions Want Card Check

Even when we overwhelmingly win elections, we still have to wait to have a union. This will be drawn out for another year and by then only half of these dealers will still be there.

Bally's Atlantic City is asking the National Labor Relations Board to set aside results of a recent election in which dealers voted 628-255 for union representation, alleging that the United Auto Workers union unfairly interfered.

In papers filed with the board on Monday, their deadline to do so, Bally's named 10 objections to the union's conduct. Allegations included that the union's agents, supporters and representatives:

- threatened voters who did not support them.

- offered voters "things of value" to induce them to vote in the union's favor.

- threatened voters that if they did not sign a document supporting the UAW, they would be "the first to go" after the union won the election.

- And failure of the union personnel in charge of conducting the election to enforce the labor relation board's rules regarding election conduct in the polling area.

The union and casino could not immediately be reached for comment.

Hodgman

Archie and Jesus, Who'd a Thunk It?

Archie takes on Darwin (and, one imagines, the teacher's unions) in the old west.

scans_daily: The Gospel of Archie

The "Come On" Treatment, Indeed

I think of all the things I have read today, the Supreme Court fucking union pensions and home care workers, the Oregon House of Representatives failing to pass a cigarette tax wherein all monies would go to funding health care for children without it, a way of life ending so that some exploiters can exploit in Africa, Barry "the Juicer" Bonds coming one step closer to breaking the home run record, this story is the most depressing:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- If you saw the Red Hot Chili Peppers whispering to Al Gore when they accepted their Grammy Award for best rock album in February, that's the moment they committed to playing Live Earth.

Gore said he met with band members for more than an hour before this year's televised awards show, trying to persuade them to perform at one of the concerts.

While receptive to the idea, they weren't sure they could fit the July 7 concert into their schedule, Gore said Friday.

"I was pushing and pushing them that no matter how difficult it was, that it was important," he said.

The former vice president, who lost the 2000 presidential election to George Bush despite winning the popular vote, is promoting the Live Earth concerts to raise climate change awareness.

Gore, who presented the Grammy for the best rock album with Queen Latifah, said that amid their celebration for winning the award for "Stadium Arcadium," band members "came over to me on stage and whispered in my ear: `We're in.'"

"That was the greatest place to get a confirmation that I've had yet," he said.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are among the headliners for the London concert. Other shows are slated for New York; Tokyo; Shanghai, China; Johannesburg, South Africa; Sydney, Australia; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Hamburg, Germany; and Istanbul, Turkey.

Organizers have also promised an event in Antarctica.

Now just picture Al Gore spending an hour with these boys, begging them to play a freaking concert. The guy should have been the most powerful man in the world and is, instead, reduced to begging a group of former heroin addicts make room in the schedule for him. And an hour. That's a mighty long time to spend in any negotiation. Maybe there were some pretty serious caucuses.

And just to other hand it. I'm also disturbed that the boys who bragged about fucking 'em just to see the look on their faces spent an hour listening to Al Gore beg them to play a show for the environment. I know Anthony always did the "I'm part native America, and therefor more spiritual than your average rocker," but that should indicate that it should have taken less than an hour. Maybe there was some sticking over a "no killing coyotes" policy.

Another Classic

For Ash

Hard to Believe

On Napster, Poison (the band) has 6 popular songs (based on frequency of downloads). "I Want Action" is not one of them.

Anyone want to take a shot at the top 6 Poison songs, as determined by the fine subscribers to Napster?

Changed My Life...Yours?

You must watch Kirk Cameron preach to gang members. I got to say, the guy has cajones.

Close to Home

I gotta admit, this describes more than just a few of us, by way of Kos:

I bet at least half of the netleft are failed professors, over-educated literary theory PHDs, who make themselves appear more numerous than they are through their anonymity and deliberate manipulation of google. What if the netleft, that has created the impression that there is a rising plurality that would like to abandon Iraqis to Qaeda, Quds and the Ba'ath, are just a few thousand committed Marxists in their pajamas? What if the Dems have strategically miscalculated? What if their over-compensation is to appease a vocal 1 percent of the electorate that actually draws contempt from the rest of the country?

God Bless You, Stephen

How come these guys get it so right when so many, including the "serious news people" get it so freakin' wrong? How come this is "fringe?"

Money in the Bank

Would EZ get hold of me?

I Feel Transformed

Anyone care to take a shot at coming up with an explanation for this?

Thought You Might Need This

Anybody out there have any idea why Milton Berle would agree to be in this video?

Nevermind.

Clinton and Unions

More evidence Hillary won't be any friendlier to unions than Bill was. One of her top aides, Mark Penn, is the CEO of a firm currently engaged an anti-union campaign. I love this quote from Penn:

“Senator Clinton’s well-documented support for pro-union causes would not in any way be affected by some clients in a firm related to the corporate network of one of her advisers. There is no connection whatsoever with her pro-union record.”

Apparently, one can have close advisers that are anti-union, but remain solidly pro-union. I have some Republican friends, but I wouldn't ask them to help me run for President. Of course Penn also points out that he is a Dem through and through. It just so happens that he is a union-buster.

I'd like to remind my friends who have already resigned themselves to knocking on doors for Hillary that this is what the Clintons and their ilk brought us...a Democratic Party that is comfortable with being anti-labor.

The Other Foot

I think that this graphic makes it pretty clear that it is Edwards that will have to drop out. Or, at least, he needs to do something pretty bold by December. When Edwards staffers talk amongst themselves, do you think they admit that have to hope that something bad happens to Hillary for their guy to have any chance?

More Dem Politics

Would it be fair to say that the only way that Hillary can be defeated is if almost all of the voters who support either Edwards or Obama give their votes to Obama or Edwards should one of them drop out? Follow me? If this is the case, then either the guy who is running third before the primaries needs to drop out or Hillary is going to have this thing wrapped up two weeks after it starts.

Some have already resigned themselves to a Hillary candidacy. I'm going to keep thinking of ways to avoid having this happen.

The New Guy

Oregon state Senator Alan Bates is thinking of challenging Gordon Smith. Blue Oregon has a discussion of his policy of never going negative and what that might mean. I checked out his support of "universal" health care, as this is a topic I am pretty familiar with. Reading that he was working with Republican moderate Democrat Ben Westlund on this issue did not inspire confidence.

Bates directs you to his website where he touts Senate Bill 329. The opening paragraph of the summary of SB 329 tells me all I need to know.

The Senate Commission of Health Care Access and Affordability, co-chaired during the 2006 interim by Senators Alan Bates and Ben Westlund, involved a broad-based coalition of health care providers, insurance providers, hospitals, advocates and large and small business leaders to look at ways to contain costs, improve quality and increase coverage.

Now, it's possible that "advocates" represents all the Oregonians without insurance, all Oregonians with crap insurance, all Oregonians who purchase their own insurance and all Oregonians that have employer-based insurance, but I am going to guess not. In fact, I am going to guess that "advocates" means pharmaceutical lobbyists, the AMA, and maybe the AFL-CIO.

I get depressed when I read things like this, because this is what "sensible" Dems support instead of advocating for what we truly believe. Slate has an article on the Dems caving on another of Bush's right-wing judges. Dems caved on troop withdrawal. And now the Dems are seeking to stop states from setting higher emissions standards than the federal government.

Why am I in this party again?

You Know It's True

From a discussion on the Webs:

Are conservatives the crazy ones? Time once again to show the loony liberal for what he is by listing the things he supports (in alphabetical order):

Abortion

Abolition of private property

Abolition of tradition

Adultery

Affirmative Action

"Alternative lifestyles"

Anti-Americanism

Anti-democracy

Anti conservative speech

Anti school-choice

Anti-subsidiarity

Appeasement of our enemies

Assisted suicide

Citizenship for known terrorists

Death taxes

Defiance of legitimate authority

Distribution of condoms in K-12

Diversity (except viewpoint)

Euthanasia

Female masturbation workshops in universities

Fornication

Glorification of debauchery

Godless Marxism

"Hate" crimes laws

Hate for the Christian religion

Hate for those of faith (except Islamics and Islamic bombers)

Homosexual special rights

Intolerance of the good

Isolationism

K-12 Indoctrination into Godless Marxism

K-12 Indoctrination into homosexuality

K-12 sex education

Lack of moral clarity

Moral equivalency

Moral Relativism

Nietzscheism

Obliteration of God from the public square

Parole of vicious criminals

Pedophilia (except by Catholic priests and Republicans)

Polylogism

Pro-Europeanism

Racial quotas

Radical egalitarianism

Redistribution of OTHER peoples’ money

Release of known terrorists

Same-sex "marriage"

Sodomy

Speech codes

The individual human will (will to power)

Tolerance of evil

Tolerance Über Alles

UN one-world government

Unlimited government

Unlimited taxation

"Victimless" crimes

Voting rights for aliens (legal or otherwise)

Voting rights for felons

One poster on another site wrote: "It is their fascination with death and communism that is the prime mover of such dementia."

Never saw it put any better.

What's the Freaking Point?

This is depressing. The DSCC is still looking for someone to run against Gordon Smith for Senator. Steve Novick, apparently, is not good enough. Obviously, the guy has some superficial drawbacks, but I liked him when I heard him speak.

This is who the DSCC is looking at (after all national politicians have turned them down):

* Tony McPeak was Oregon chairman of Bob Dole for President in 1996, Oregon chairman of Oregon Veterans for Bush in 2000, an adviser to Howard Dean and John Kerry in 2004, and is now an adviser to Barack Obama. See Wikipedia for more.

* Randall Edwards was once an aide to Senator Bob Packwood - and his wife, Julia Brim-Edwards, used to be a GOP campaign consultant. Other than that, he's been a reliable, though somewhat moderate, Democrat in the state legislature and in the State Treasurer's office. He's termed out in 2008 from the Treasurer's office, so a campaign may be in the offing.

* John Russell has never held elective office, though he was once the chairman of the PDC. He is presumably a self-funder: He's donated over $160,000 to federal campaign committees since 1996 - exclusively to Democrats. Here in Oregon, Russell and his company donated $25,000 to Ted Kulongoski, $5000 to Ben Westlund, and $5000 to Ron Saxton in 2006. (Sources: here, here, and here.) In 2002, he donated $4000 to Ron Saxton.

That's right...Republicans and Republican donors. Depressing.