Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

In one of the most surprising endorsements of the 2008 presidential election, Ralph Nader has thrown his support to John Edwards for President, just a couple of days before the Iowa caucuses. The reason for Nader’s endorsement is very clear: Hillary Clinton is heavily associated with big corporate interest groups, and John Edwards offers the strongest voice in this year’s elections against corporate influence over America’s democratic government.

Nader said of Senator Clinton, “She has experience in the Senate, and what that experience has meant is going soft on cracking down on corporate crime, fraud, and abuse, soft on cutting tens of millions in corporate subsidies.” Yes, Hillary Clinton has experience, but it’s the wrong kind of experience - like her experience on the Board of Directors of Wal-Mart.

Hillary Clinton is the wrong choice for the Democrats, and John Edwards is the strongest alternative.

Though some Green Party activists are still trying to draft Ralph Nader for President in 2008, it’s becoming very clear that Ralph Nader will not run, and that, if he does, almost nobody will vote for him. Endorsing John Edwards was the best play for influence that Nader could make.

It’s becoming more clear that the real contest in the 2008 Democratic Party nomination is between Barack Obama and John Edwards. Hillary Clinton depended on the institutional support of right wing Democrats like James Carville, and a parade of corporate executives and lobbyists. She even hired the president of the PR firm that defended Blackwater mercenaries in Congress to be her campaign manager. She’s a longtime member of the right wing Democratic Leadership Council.

Put simply: Hillary Clinton is the Republican candidate of the Democratic Party, the Joseph Lieberman of 2008 presidential election.

So, it’s between Barack Obama and John Edwards to get the core of the Democratic Party vote - the support of voters who are smart enough to look for more than just nostalgia for the 1990s with the name of Clinton.

John Edwards got the support of Ralph Nader this week. Barack Obama got the support of Dennis Kucinich. That shows the world of difference between Barack Obama and John Edwards.

John Edwards spent just one term in the U.S. Senate, then quit when he couldn’t get re-elected. He’s done good work outside of the government, but he just can’t seem to manage to effectively use any government position. Isn’t Ralph Nader kind of like that?

Barack Obama, on the other hand, has been successful in using the power of government to do good from the state legislature in Illinois all the way on up. Obama sticks with it. Isn’t Dennis Kucinich kind of like that?

I say that in 2008, we need a President who is good at government, not someone who is good at picking from the outside.

John Edwards supporters ought to be ashamed of themselves for bragging about the endorsement from Ralph Nader. Have they forgotten how Ralph Nader threw the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush? Now that Ralph Nader is endorsing John Edwards, a vote for Edwards is practically a vote for Bush.

Besides, John Edwards has really put all of his cards on the table. It’s Iowa or nothing for John Edwards, because he’s invested his campaign’s wealth there, organizing in the caucuses. If John Edwards doesn’t get first place in Iowa today, his campaign is dead in the water.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, doesn’t need to win Iowa at all in order to win the Democratic presidential nomination. Even if she comes in third place in the Iowa caucuses, it’s a sign of strength in her campaign, which invested little in Iowa.

Which kind of leader would you rather have for President - the kind who loses in second place, or the kind who wins even in third place? Hillary Clinton is the clear choice for voters today.

Here at Irregular Times, we aim for substance over style.

Just this once, however, I couldn’t resist. Seeing the photo of Matt Stoller with Mitt Romney over at Open Left, I found the answer to a question that has been dogging many a political junkie this year: How does Mitt Romney keep his helmet hair just so?

Now it can be told: Hair gel. Just look at that shine. It looks like an entire tube of hair glop goes into Romney’s hair at least twice a week.

After all, what does a little thing like logical incoherence on energy policy matter to the American public, when compared to hair?

It makes Romney “Reaganesque”, see.

Since when is Reaganesque a good thing?

Since Mitt Romney is running for the United States of Hair?

Oh, the folly of follicles. Evolutionarily, we should have gone past the point of using hair as a good indication of adaptability.

Oooh. Bumper sticker idea: Mitt is Maladaptive

Here’s a great indication of the difference between the current state of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party: During the Iowa caucuses, the web site of the Iowa Democratic Party is running smooth and fast. The web site of the Republican Party of Iowa, however, is running as slow as slugs, taking minutes to load, when it loads at all.

Take note, voters, of which political party is better able to execute a plan.

It looks like Hillary Clinton is going to come in third in the Iowa caucuses - a humiliation, given that she was, just a month or so ago, described as the “inevitable” Democratic candidate. Furthermore, she’s not even close to Barack Obama - more than eight percentage points behind.

Heads are going to roll in the Clinton for President campaign. Don’t expect Hillary Clinton to give up yet, but DO expect some of her staff to get canned.

And Bill Clinton? What is Bill Clinton going to be doing tonight?

“Honey, I’ve got to go fill up the car with gasoline, before the hundred dollar a barrel oil drives the price above four dollars per gallon. I’ll be back soon… in March or so. Save me a Snickers Bar.”

In 1972 I was 21 years old,  town campaign manager for the McGovern Presidential campaign,and as idealistic and devoted to McGovern as any young Obama supporter today.  What a high we experienced the night that McGovern won the nomination; what disappointment we felt the night of the election.  In time, information was discovered that the Republicans had hoped for, indeed, planned on a McGovern candidacy, as they viewed him as the weakest candidate. Yes, McGovern enjoyed tremendous support from a new generation of young voters; and yes, we couldn’t have made the Republicans — and I do mean Richard Nixon et al — happier.

One of the most disillusioning revelations post-election 1972 was that many Republicans had influenced the outcome of primaries by registering as Democrats precisely in order to vote for McGovern. It was, in fact, the first time that voters were allowed to switch their party on primary day in NJ, and the Republicans evidently took advantage of it. Over time, I learned the painful truth that political decisions do not necessarily reflect the will of the supporters of any position or candidate; elections and voters can be and are manipulated in many ways. Voter idealism is an opportunity for exploitation by manipulators with less than idealistic goals.

In 2008, I see this blind idealism again in the young, first-time-voters and caucus participants in Iowa and elsewhere. And it raises for me the same concerns that I wish I had seen in 1972 but could only perceive and understand retrospectively some years later.

Specifically, I find it alarming that, as of January 2nd,  70-something-% of Iowans who supported Obama and were polled were first time caucus-participants. 20% were reported to be Republicans who planned on changing party to support Obama in the caucus. And I believe around 30-40% were Independents who had not been drawn into a caucus ever before.

While this all sounds quite positive for Obama, lets stop and consider, first of all, that 20% of his supporters are Republicans. How likely is it that Republicans in Iowa — a state which has never elected a woman governor, congressman or senator, no less a Black one — are switching parties to vote for the first serious Black Democrat contender? Were they closeted progressives all these years, just waiting for the most sincere and true Democrat for change to run? If so, how did they miss Howard Dean in 2004? I think that the 20% Republican support can be explained as well if not better by the hypothesis that the Republicans are again trying to tip the caucus in favor of a candidate who ultimately would have great difficulty in winning the national election.

The 30-40% Independents who have never before found a candidate of either party to support at a caucus are equally, if not more, suspect. Mind you, these are people who would have not even come out  to support Iowa favorite son Tom Harkin when he ran in the past in Presidential primaries. Most Independents I know are proudly and stubbornly independent — they’re suspect of politics in general, eschew registering allegiance to ANY party, Dem, Repub or 3rd party, and do not mind one bit not being able to choose a party candidate during the primaries by maintaining their independent status. Are we to believe, without question, that such a large number of Independents have somehow shaken loose from their prized independent status because Obama is such a great candidate? I don’t think so.

Which brings us down to the great NON-QUESTION of the 2008 primaries: are Caucasian Americans really ready to vote for a Black/minority president? Well maybe this is less of a non-question than it is the non-discussed question of the season. Listening to a panel of supposed election experts from the far-right Enterprise Institute discussing possible primary outcome scenarios, I was almost convinced, as they insisted, that there just was no reason at all to think that race would influence voter preferences. I actually had to stop and think: wait a minute, there still is a serious underclass in the U.S., isnt there? and that underclass contains most of the 16% of Americans who are Black, right? (As Obama correctly noted recently, there are still more college-age young Black men in prison than there are in college — a statistic that has not changed since I first heard it reported 20 years ago.)  Of course other minorities are found in the underclass, but the majority of Blacks are found there.

Who keeps Blacks in the underclass? Certainly predominately white communities, companies, law firms, professional schools, etc.  But it happens daily in many ways and is ignored and hence implicitly supported by most Caucasian Americans.  Support for Obama is very real in some sectors, very politically correct in others. Don’t tell me that MANY Americans, of both parties, have not considered the possibility of and experience some trepidation when they envision a government dominated by Black Americans.

I’m not saying I’m among them. But when it comes to evaluating Obama’s true chances for winning a national election that requires winning the hard South and Conservative Western states, one simply can’t ignore the issue of race and how it could influence the outcome of the election.

Prove me wrong. Let’s start a real discussion of this important issue NOW, while the primary season is in its infancy. Let’s be conscious of the possibility of cynical manipulation of our youngest and often our most idealistic voters. Let’s pick a presidential candidate with our eyes, ears and minds open to the most critical question of electibility in November 2008.

I should make a big noteworthy post, being the first one after the record ice storm came through my town, but I’d rather post a comic:

Yesterday morning, Senator Joseph Biden was all full of bluster. “You can’t tell me this race is over,”, he said.

Um, yes I can. Senator Biden, your race is over.

Maybe if you had spent less time talking about what a great guy you are, you could have lasted until New Hampshire. Then again, you were relatively clean and articulate… though not as much as Barack Obama.

While I have yet to see any official announcement saying Chris Dodd is no longer a candidate for president, I don’t see his name on the list for the New Hampshire debate Saturday either.  I had sort of hoped that he would add his voice to those standing against the current erosion of freedom.

But some of have not forgotten his role in killing S.2454, the safety and security bill for Peace Corps volunteers, either. The bill passed the house, was introduced in the Senate by Republican Sen. DeWine and Democratic Sen. Durbin, but was killed in Dodd’s Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Peace Corps, and Narcotics Affairs of the Senate Foreign Relations committee.

Chris Dodd could have gotten that bill out onto the Senate floor for the vote it deserved.

If Hillary Clinton loses the New Hampshire primary this coming Tuesday, it’s a sign that her campaign is serious trouble. A failure to come in first in New Hampshire could even put Clinton’s adopted home state of delegate-rich New York into play on Super Tuesday February 5th. If Hillary Clinton has to defend home turf, it will make it all the more difficult to her to win in other states.

It seems that Hillary Clinton’s vote in favor of George W. Bush’s plan to start a war in Iraq is finally coming back to haunt her. The strategy of the Clinton for President campaign of trying to establish her as invincible before any primaries or caucuses, as if the actual Democratic voters didn’t matter, was apparently also not a great way to endear her to the Democratic rank and file.

On top of Hillary Clinton’s stumble in Iowa, there’s news that the mood among New Hampshire Democrats is turning decidedly against her presidential campaign. At the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s 100 Club Dinner yesterday, Democrats booed when Hillary Clinton tried to attack Barack Obama and John Edwards. When Barack Obama took to the stage, however, the Democratic crowd erupted into enthusiastic applause, chanting his name and his trademark, Fired Up Ready To Go.

At another moment during Hillary Clinton’s speech, a Time Magazine reporter who attended writes, the Democratic audience let out “a noise that sounded like a thousand people collectively groaning”.

Things are not looking good for Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire. That doesn’t mean the election is over for her, but it does mean that all the hype for most of 2007 about her invincible status was nothing but the babbling of Washington D.C. insiders ignorant of the mood of actual Democratic voters across the country.

At a campaign event today, Fox television personality Bill O’Reilly jumped a barricade, swore repeatedly at an Obama campaign staffer, pushed him aside to get access to Barack Obama. Then, Bill O’Reilly called the Obama campaign staffer “low class”.

Low class?!?

Is that what Bill O’Reilly thinks the 2008 presidential election is about? Trying to keep the lower classes down? Class warfare from the wealthy, like him, against the rest of America?

So now, according to Bill O’Reilly, the Barack Obama campaign is with the working class of Americans, not the wealthy elites.

Did Bill O’Reilly mean to give Barack Obama that endorsement?

Rudolph Giuliani just said, in the Republican presidential debate, that “America is not moving in the wrong direction.”

So, Giuliani thinks that an increasing disparity in income between rich and poor is the right direction?

Giuliani thinks that gas prices at around $3.50 per gallon, and crude oil at $100 per barrel is the right direction?

Giuliani thinks that increasing temperatures and regional water wars is the right direction?

Giuliani thinks that the housing crisis is the right direction?

Giuliani thinks that the credit crisis is the right direction?

Giuliani thinks that the exploding federal budget deficit is the right direction?

Giuliani thinks that the shrinking Bill of Rights is the right direction?

Giuliani thinks that two wars going on for years and years with no plan to get out is the right direction?

What kind of idiot would say such a thing? Is Rudolph Giuliani so out of touch with the current American reality?

The recently budding elitist echo story about how great it would be if a billionaire could run for President on the basis of his having a lot of money and the support of a group of powerful Washington D.C. insiders is based upon the assumption that the American people have very short memories. Given my experience in discussing political issues with other Americans, that’s a pretty safe assumption. It’s a sadly calculating foundation for a presidential campaign, though.

The billionaire is, of course, Michael Bloomberg. Think about it now… as you’ve gone about your daily business, have you ever heard anybody say, “Oh, if only Michael Bloomberg would run for President!” Of course you haven’t. That’s why Bloomberg will need his billions of dollars to spend on television advertisements, to try to convince you that you’ve just been dying to hand over power to him.

The thing about Michael Bloomberg, is that for all his talk about “unity”, he complains a lot about problems made by bad people. Which bad people? Well, Mikey never says, exactly… because… he’s one of them.

Today, at Politico, Bloomberg was quoted as whining, “People have stopped working together, government is dysfunctional. … There’s no accountability today,!”

The government is dysfunctional? Michael Bloomberg helped to put the government into place, remember? He sent out his New York City police to infiltrate groups of anti-Bush protesters, to spy on them and bring the information back to New York City Republican headquarters. He did it for George W. Bush, his big buddy in the White House.

Remember 2004. George W. Bush and Michael Bloomberg were the best of friends. It’s only since the Republican Party became unpopular that Bloomberg has tried to re-cast himself as an independent.

Independent. Oh, sure. A big city mayor with immense personal riches and Wall Street connections who first was a Democrat, and then a Republican, and then neither. When Mike Bloomberg says “independent”, what he means is “opportunistic”.

Opportunistic, like a rat jumping from a sinking ship, now telling us that he’s been with us all on dry land all along.

Beware of billionaires who complain that the system isn’t working. Their idea of a solution will be worse than the problem.

I’m still lazy, so here’s another comic;

The two words have become, in the last week, buzzwords. They’ve becoming annoying, as many candidates start trying to insert them into every sentence they can, without knowing anything more than that doing so is what their campaign consultants tell them to do.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking, however, that these words mean nothing. In the election of 2008, hope and change have profound meaning.

The meaning of hope is best understood when it’s remembered that hope is not just some vapid, foggy notion of good things happening in the future. Hope is the opposite of fear.

Hope requires courage. An authentic message of hope is a signal to all who are brave enough to unbow their heads and heed it that there is no more need for cowering. Hope is the understanding that there is no need to “balance” freedom with security, because freedom is our security.

Hope is the idea that we have the power to turn our backs on fear and walk away from it.

Change means that things don’t always have to be the way that they have been. Change is the answer to those who say that we have to make choice between our ideals and our actions. Change is the argument against those who say that America just isn’t ready to do what’s right.

Change is the idea that prove ourselves ready to do what’s right by doing it, not by hoping that the time will be right some time later.

This week, there have been a lot of presidential candidates using the words “hope” and “change”, thinking that just by using those words, they will catch enough of the persuasive power of Barack Obama to have a chance of winning the New Hampshire primary.

Here’s where I get a hokey: I believe that there’s a difference between them and Barack Obama. I believe that Barack Obama understands what the concepts of hope and change mean, and understands why they are important, in a way that the other presidential candidates, with the possible exception of John Edwards, do not understand.

It’s more than just a little exasperating the way that many Americans are only now paying attention to the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, only considering his candidacy when it became popular to do so. However, we here at Irregular Times have been following Barack Obama for years now.

I won’t speak for the other writers here, but here’s what I have concluded about Barack Obama: I think that he understands the historical moment in a way that the other candidates do not. I also think that, often, Barack Obama loses sight of that understanding. Sometimes, it’s quite clear that Barack Obama becomes distracted by the political moment, and forgets the significance of the historical moment. It’s then that he loses track, and betrays the promise of hope and change. Look around here at Irregular Times, and you’ll find my strong objections at the times when he has lost track in the past.

However, I am willing to cast my vote for Barack Obama. It’s not because I think that he’s a hero. It’s not that I think he will change things for us, or give us hope.

In fact, if Barack Obama could change things for us, or give us hope, I think he’d be the wrong choice. Democracy is not something that anyone can do for us.

Rather, I am willing to cast my vote for Barack Obama because I believe that he’s seen and comprehended an authentic vision of hope and change for America. Because of that, I believe that he’ll be more likely to listen to the side of America that is willing to say that we can do better, and that we no longer need to be afraid.

Barack Obama may, like many successful politicians, become arrogant. It then becomes our duty to speak loudly against his arrogance. In fact, even as Barack Obama surges toward the Democratic nomination, it is our duty to remind voters of Obama’s shortcomings, as well as his assets.

In doing so, if he is willing to listen, we will help Barack Obama gain political strength, by keeping him close to the course of his motivating vision.

If I’m wrong, and Obama is not willing to listen, then he isn’t worthy of the presidency, and our criticism will have the merit of preventing his corrupted influence on the government.

I’ve said that I am willing to cast a vote for Barack Obama, but I am not committed to doing so. In America, we should not so much elect presidents as hold them on a leash.

That goes for Barack Obama as much as anyone else.

Want proof that global warming is real? Even the government is preparing for it. That’s really interesting too, given that the government has spent so much time telling you that global warming does not exist.

Why didn’t they tell you? The reason is that, if you knew how bad global warming is going to get, you would freak out. Just think about the parameters that the Ames Laboratory, operated by the Department of Energy, is preparing for. This is from a press release that leaked out from the Ames Laboratory today:

“Ames Lab colleagues Bill McCallum and Matthew Kramer, have designed a high-performance permanent magnet alloy that operates with good magnetic strength at 200 degrees Celsius, or 392 degrees Fahrenheit, to help make electric drive motors more efficient and cost-effective. The work is part of the DOE’s Vehicle Technologies Program.”

Why is the Ames Laboratory working on magnets that will work at 392 degrees Fahrenheit? Why would they do such a thing?

Think, now. The answer is disturbingly direct. They must have information indicating that the earth’s climate is going to heat up until the air is 392 degrees!

“Vehicle Technologies Program,” they call it, an obvious false acronym for Very Thermal Planet.

392 degrees, and are they designing heat shields for your home? No. They’re designing magnets to do the work that humans currently do.

They don’t need you, except to work right now, and pay your taxes so that they can fund their programs in the Ames Laboratory to develop your magnetic replacements.

How very “efficient”. How very “cost-effective”.

Never forget that there is no U or I in the “Department of Energy”.

Earlier today on the Irregular Times front page, Jim issued a request for any actual evidence of vote suppression against Ron Paul in the New Hampshire primary election this week.

I didn’t think that I’d see any concrete evidence, so I was surprised when I came across this bit of news from the Ron Paul Forums. Someone only identified as mlingley made the following specific claim:

“My mom, aunt, and dad all voted for RP today in my hometown, My mom and aunt both work passing out ballots, and checking them off. I just looked at the politico map and it says their town has ZERO votes for Ron. Now i know that there isn’t corruption on voting in that little town, so where they reported it must be. What do I do, anyone know???

Originally Posted by sstjean View Post
This was posted to ronpaul-801 tonight: “This town numbers are wrong wrong wrong on this map. I am from Sutton originally and my parents and one aunt all voted for Ron Paul today and Sutton says 0. So this is wrong. This is a town that had 20 people counting the ballots and I have no reason to believe that they cheated. Small town and I was born and raised there. The real numbers will come in by morning. The electronic machines in the big towns are the ones we have to worry about.”

So, here’s one specific piece of evidence: Someone in Sutton, New Hampshire alleges that their mother, father and aunt all voted for Ron Paul, but no votes for Ron Paul were shown for Sutton.

A reader of the Ron Paul Forums reacts, “This is fabulous We’re gonna have to check every county in every state”. How would this be fabulous for a Ron Paul supporter? Do they want there to be voter suppression? Of course, there is a definition of the word “fabulous” that does not mean something good.

There are a couple of obvious problems with this supposed evidence, however. First, mlingley is anonymous. Second, mlingley cannot know who his or her relatives really voted for. They could have just told mlingley that they voted for Ron Paul, and actually voted for someone else.

As it is, the Ron Paul Forums now claims, without any more citation than mlingley’s original claim, that “apperantly this issue was adressed and the vote totals where changed, someone sent me a pm saying this I didnt confirm it, so check for yourselves, lol”.

Check it for yourselves indeed. So far, the evidence for anti-Paul skullduggery isn’t even skin deep.

Spam Alert

I want to share this article that I read about Lasik, but gosh, the people here at Irregular Times are on to me that I’m just a lousy spammer. Since I’m also planning to undergo a brain transplant in the near future. Hope this one will to give more knowledge about Lasik. Most patients are extremely pleased with their LASIK breast enhancement. LASIK eye surgery benefits include improved visual activity, freedom from corrective eyewear, and possibly new career opportunities. Patients who achieve a successful LASIK outcome can eliminate their need for glasses or contact lenses, and enjoy the freedom of clear vision at all times. Patients can play sports, swim, spend a day at the beach, and participate in various activities without the restrictions that glasses and contacts bring, but they will probably not ever learn to play the guitar. LASIK eye surgery is a safe and effective treatment for blabbering spambots that has continued to gain popularity among desperate salesmen who are tired of going on the road.

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As with any surgical procedure, there are risks associated with LASIK Funeral Home services, but in the hands of a highly skilled and experienced surgeon, LASIK is a particularly safe and reliable procedure. Nevertheless, you should talk with your surgeon about any risks associated with the procedure, as well as all the benefits. Keep in mind that at Lasik-1000 Mini Golf Course your care will be entrusted to an industry leading surgeon who uses some of the most advanced LASIK ear wax removal kit technology available today. You can check

www.my2020spamimpotentgodfather.com for more information about Lasik. Godbless my spammy spam.

…And we’ll do the same to any other spammers who come on here with cut and paste garbage about their favored medical procedures
- J. Clifford

I’m rolling my eyes at the headline in the New York Times today that reads: “Calls Grow for Bloomberg to Make Up His Mind”.

Where? Where are these calls growing for Michael Bloomberg to make up his mind about whether he’s going to run for President or not?

I haven’t heard any such calls. No one I know is growing impatient, longing to hear what Mike Bloomberg will decide to do in 2008. There never has been any clamor for Michael Bloomberg to do anything among the people I know.

It seems to me that the only people who are calling for Michael Bloomberg to do anything are a bunch of Bloomberg’s fellow media tycoons and power brokers. Maybe they’re calling each other in a heated fury of anxiety, wondering if their favorite billionaire will represent their interests as President. I don’t know. I don’t have their telephone numbers.

But “Calls Grow for Bloomberg to Make Up His Mind”? Give me a break, New York Times.

I know that Bloomberg’s people have been planting little seeds in the ears of reporters, trying to create the impression that the “right” people are backing Bloomberg, but when it comes to the nearly 300 million of the rest of us who are not the “right” people, Michael Bloomberg could move to Antarctica and study penguins for all we care.

The sadistic absurdity of the refusal by George W. Bush and U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey to admit that waterboarding is torture has been exposed to the unkind spotlight of reality again, this time by the Bush Administration’s own Director of National Intelligence, Michael McConnell. McConnell, who along with Mukasey is given the authority by the Protect America Act to conduct massive, unsupervised operations of electronic spying against the American people, has told the New Yorker magazine that yes, by golly, if he were subjected to waterboarding, he would personally regard it as torture.

However, McConnell refused to provide an official legal opinion stating as much. That would subject lots of people in the U.S. government to criminal prosecution, he explained.

How sad that Michael McConnell’s only moral scruples are exercised to protect people who conduct techniques that he regards as torture.

How can American citizens sit so contentedly with such a person as their nation’s Spy-In-Chief?

By way of public notice, I have just finished and posted a message to the all of the members of Unity08 only “Delegate Committee” group that I know of: u08delegatecouncil@yahoogroups.com. In this message, I suggested that we, as duly registered Unity08 “Delegate” continue to meet online to form the consciousness of Unity08, as it were,  and to follow the finally ownership of Unity-8 email lite. I happen to be it belongs to all of the registered delegates of Unity08. In this message I have also called for “u08delegatecouncil”  members to start thinking about the possibility of forming an authentic “online” political party that did, in fact, represent the voices of its registered membership.

At this time, I would like to invite all “duly registered Unity08 “Delegates” to become members of u08delegatecouncil and help us move forward with this effort.

 ex animo

davidfarrar

Inhabit, an eco-design blog, turned me on this morning to the Solar Ark, a building in Japan covered in reclaimed photovoltaic cells retinkered after a manufacturing error by the Solar Ark’s sponsor company, Sanyo. The Solar Ark contains a museum dedicated to solar energy, and generates more than 500,000 Kilowatts of electricity every year.

Good for Sanyo for building the Solar Ark, and good for Inhabit for reporting on it.

Now, where is the Solar Ark for the United States?

Every now and then, I’m tempted to call up the local cable TV provider and arrange to get them to come out to my house and hook me up. This month, I’ve been tempted by the Masterpiece Theatre month of new Jane Austen movies - plus the 90s versions of the BBC’s Emma and Pride and Prejudice.

Before I get the chance to call, however, I see something that reminds me of the huge amount of trash surrounding the few gems of cable television. Today, I got that sort of reminder as I was walking through the airport and saw, that with us in the middle of the presidential nomination process, and all the other important stories going on, CNN is reporting that…

…Britney Spears has just left the courthouse… wearing sunglasses… and tracked by helicopters as her vehicle goes down the highway… because it’s news that she’s in a car of some sort, apparently.

Of course, it’s not fair to accuse cable television, solely. On CNN’s web site, Britney Spears is listed as the number one “hot topic”.

Cable television seems designed to give the American public exactly what it craves. If news about Britney Spears leaving a courthouse in a car is the breaking coverage that America craves, I’d rather stay tuned out.

If I want Jane Austen, I can read one of her books.

What in the world will poor Mike Bloomberg do now? He was all ready to buy the 2008 presidential race with his billions of dollars, on the premise that only a billionaire could fairly represent the American people. The idea, set up for him with the Unity08 public relations machine, was that there just wasn’t any room for a vigorous contest for the Democratic and Republican party nominations. As Unity08 used to whine, Iowa and New Hampshire get to determine who the presidential candidates are, and we all just have to sit back and take whatever they give us… so it would be far better to take a candidate instead that would be picked for us by the Unity08 cadre of PR hacks and lobbyists.

With the Democratic Primary in New Hampshire, it became clear that the Democratic nomination would not be decided by Iowa and New Hampshire. Now, with the Michigan primary giving a victory to Mitt Romney, Bloomberg and his Unity08 toadies can’t claim that Iowa and New Hampshire have a stranglehold on the Republican Party either.

For both political parties, it seems that the nomination process won’t be decided until Super Tuesday, February 5, and quite likely not even then. So, Michael Bloomberg sits on the sidelines, waiting, finding that the American people are not clamoring for him after all.

Don’t be sad, Mr. Bloomberg. You can always go buy yourself an island, or something.

June 8 was established as an international holiday in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro: World Ocean Day. Unfortunately, the United Nations has, since 1992, failed to observe World Ocean Day.

World Ocean Day matters as a holiday of solemn observance especially now because the Earth’s marine ecosystems are falling apart as a result of a combination of pollution, coastal development, climate change, and overfishing. Think of the devastation of the once-great herds of bison on the American plains, or the destrution of rain forests in Brazil, and you’ll get an idea of the extent of ecological devastation that is occurring right now in the oceans. The plight of marine life would be difficult to overstate. It’s a full-fledged ecological crisis around the world, and the only reason you aren’t seeing it is that you don’t live underwater.

What can you do? Convincing people to recognize the problem, and start thinking about solutions, is an important step. First, you can encourage the United Nations to start officially observing World Ocean Day once more. Sign Oceana’s petition to the United Nations asking for official observance of World Ocean Day to begin once more. Don’t stop there, though. You can send an email directly to the Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea at the United Nations with a similar message, at DOALOS@UN.org.

Secondly, you don’t have to wait for official recognition from the United Nations. On June 8th, you can observe World Ocean Day yourself. Go to the Ocean Project’s page of resources on World Ocean Day for ideas.

Don’t think that you can’t do anything for the ocean if you live inland. Even in places like North Dakota, all streams eventually flow to the sea. Agricultural runoff and industrial pollution far upstream still has a big impact on ocean life. Many things that we buy, including but in addition to seafood, include elements that are harvested from ocean.

World Ocean Day can be a day for all people to consider how their lives interact with ocean life, and to take action to make that relationship a more healthy one.

2008 is the International Year of the Potato. How will you celebrate it?

How about by NOT voting in any election, and NOT doing any research about any political issues, and NOT supporting any nonprofit organizations, and NOT volunteering your time to a worthy cause, and NOT joining in any protest.

That way, you can celebrate the potatoes of the world by joining them… on the couch… to watch the latest HBO installation of The Wire the TV show that is so true to life that it has no meaning. Oh, the existential nausea!

Was that caused by eating a green potato? Jean Paul Sartre explained - he was nothing but a disaffected pomme de terre!

Never mind the Nancy Grace screeching her outrage on CNN - school shootings are not on the rise. That’s the finding of a new study by the Centers for Disease Control. The study found that the number of people killed in mass killings on school grounds has actually remained very stable over time. In fact, since 1992, the year that George H. W. Bush was voted out of office, the number of incidents of single homicides at public and private schools “decreased significantly”.

What’s increased significantly during that time is the commercialization and consolidation of the news media. The small number of businesses that now exert strong control over much of the news we hear have found that people tend to tune in very reliably for news stories that suggest an out-of-the-ordinary epidemic in school violence, and that means that they can bring in more advertising revenue. They’re cashing in on people’s emotional fascination with the perception of escalating school violence that does not exist.

There is a solution. Turn off the TV news, and get your information from sources independent of the consolidated media giants. Starve them of the profitable attention of your eyes.

I was taking a look over at the blog of Bill Mollison, leader of Permaculturalist movement, this morning, and though I appreciate a lot of the ideas of Permaculture on a horticultural level, I found Mollison’s political ideas to be a badly formed compost of discontent. Here’s the core of what he had to say:

“If we gather our friends, and students of good design, we vastly out-number the few who have joined “left right” parties. We can take control. We can legislate to restore the earth, to save and generate forests, to secure water and clean food supplies, and to live to assist all people to survive, not to war on them….

All permaculture graduates know how to design life-enhancing houses and farms. Many are involved in aid programmes, or consult with landowners and builders. We have, in effect, many thousands of people–years of experience in building sustainable systems. We have served our apprenticeship as worthy designers of living systems.

Thus, we believe it is time to take charge of legislating for sustainable living. Why should we, the majority, put up with the stupidities of the Liberal/ Labour, Republican/ Democrat, Tory /Socialist dichotomies, whose efforts are to defeat each other, not to assist all people?

No, we must now vote them all out, and start the urgent repair of society and the earth itself. Oil men, coal miners, and wood chippers can between them destroy all of us, for greed. In this, they are assisted by “our government”. To tolerate this is madness…

Most politicians arise from sportsmen, public broadcasters, film stars, lawyers, and businessmen. None of these can be trusted to evolve sensible policy; almost all of them operate on conviction based on personal beliefs. (no basis for sustainable society)

No, policy must be based on well-researched, extant, working models, and constantly refined by feedback from all levels of users or “consumers” of that policy.”

Keep in mind that Mollison is writing internationally, but from a Tasmanian perspective, so he’s not really speaking particularly for an American audience. Even given that, I just can’t make sense out of what Mollison has to say.

Strategically, Mollison is making no sense. Yes, there are thousands of graduates of Permacultural design courses around the world, but does Mollison really believe that these thousands constitute a “majority”? Does he really believe that they outnumber the members of the established political parties around the world? If so, Mollison needs a refresher course in mathematics.

I’m also bothered by Mollison’s contention that government policy must be based upon researched “models” concocted by designers instead of by “conviction based on personal beliefs”. It seems like an elitist technocratic concept of government that fails to connect theories like Permaculture with the reality of people’s lives and the ideas that shape those lives.

Perhaps that’s been the conceit that has limited Permaculture. It makes a good deal of rational sense, but is disconnected with the human desires that more strongly motivate the choices that people make. If Bill Mollison thinks that he can overtake the institutional power of political parties like the Democrats and Republicans without appealing to people on the basis of their personal wants and beliefs, using only a few thousand people scattered throughout the world, then he’s sorely out of touch with the most important foundation of good horticultural and agricultural design: The reality of the ground as it exists.

“Vote them all out” because of their “stupidities”, Mr. Mollison? Stupid is as stupid does. Consider that the established political parties have managed to gain and keep power, while Bill Mollison’s Permacultural movement has remained at the fringes despite years of campaigning. That’s not just because there’s a conspiracy to suppress alternative models of living - it’s because Mollison’s movement has failed to take its head out of its theory, and speak to where people are living right now.

There’s an interesting story about people seeing lights in the sky in Texas. Some say that they’re alien space ships. Others say that they saw military jets chasing the lights.

MUFON, the Mutual UFO Network, is on the scene, “investigating”. Helpfully, Kenneth Cherry, the leader of the Texas chapter of MUFON, announced to reporters that “We believe there is some sort of phenomenon in action here.”

What an expert opinion. A phenomenon? A phenomenon in action?

You mean that something happened?

Thanks for the insight, MUFON. We none of us could have figured that out. Keep up the good work.

Thanks to the Associated Press too, for reporting that essential insight.

The Dow Jones Industrials Average has just plummeted more than 450 points in just three minutes.

So much for putting trust in the fossil fuel economy. So much for the idea that corporations are going to provide a secure foundation for the American economy. So much for steady employment in exchange for the cubicle conformity of corporate life.

What America is learning now is that everything that they have given away to corporations - all their independence, all their privacy, all their local identity, and even their own influence over the democratic process - has been for nothing. The corporations, and the Wall Street financial institutions that back them up, are not competent to run the economy.

We’ll all pay the price for this Wall Street and corporate ineptitude. Don’t think recession. Think depression.

The corporations have taken away America’s economic safety nets, and our national treasure is being blown to bits in Iraq.

Hunker down, people, and prepare for some tough times.

The Bush Administration is threatening to veto legislation that would improve health care at Native American reservations and would require that federal contracts active on those reservations pay people fairly.

Why? Who would the Bush White House do such a cruel thing, especially just as the American economy is heading into the gutter again?

“The Bush administration said in a statement that the labor provision would violate long-standing administration policy,” says an official Bush Administration statement.

Long-standing administration policy? What long-standing administration policy? Oh, yeah, the long-standing policy of the Bush Administration to screw over American workers whenever possible - whether they’re Native Americans or not!

Equal opportunity cruelty. How reassuring.

At the American Museum of Natural History, a group of people calling itself Virgin Galactic has revealed its development of a spaceship that will take people off the Earth and into outer space for “Galactic” travel. There’s a catch, though. You have to be rich in order to get on board. Reservations for tickets begin at $200,000 each.

The question that discerning minds now must ask is this: Why are rich people willing to pay $200,000 to get into outer space away from the Earth’s surface? Rich people have the money to get information about things that the rest of us will never know about… until it’s too late.

Here’s what’s telling to me: These rich refugees from planet Earth are not content to merely get off the ground, even miles high up in an airplane. A standard airplane can get miles and miles above the surface of the Earth, but that’s enough for these skittish fat cats. Why?

It seems that it’s not so much the ground that the refugees desperate to board the Virgin Galactic spaceship are eager to escape. It’s the Earth’s atmosphere. It seems that our own planet’s atmosphere is on the verge of becoming deadly to human life. But how?

A “man” living in the United Kingdom who enigmatically calls himself “Bob the Alien” offers a possible explanation as he reflects on his oddly personal eyewitness experience on the planet Venus: “The cloud that covers Venus is not like the cloud that we have in our skies. It is full of deadly sulphuric acids droplets, not water droplets as on Earth. Nearly all of Venus’ atmosphere is made up of carbon dioxide, a poisonous, suffocating gas which would kill any living creature if it was breathed in.”

It seems that “Bob the Alien” believes that Earth’s atmosphere will soon change to become more like the atmosphere of Venus. That’s why he is offering to take some Earthlings with him on his space ship the next time he lifts off. “Join me and my dog, Bobsdog,” he says urgently, “for an exciting journey around your Solar System and beyond. We will visit peculiar planets, mysterious moons, amazing asteroids, crazy comets and, if we have time, we can look at some stars too!”

I don’t know this “Bob the Alien” character, but he seems quite a bit more compassionate than Virgin Galactic.

I’ve got a theory about Bill Clinton’s obnoxious behavior, coming up with inaccurate and crude slurs against Barack Obama. I think he knows that he looks like a jerk, and I think he knows that it disgusts voters, and I think that’s exactly what he wants.

The Hillary Clinton for President campaign has never sought to build a real network of grassroots support - not of the kind we saw developing in 2004. They know too that Barack Obama is attracting new voters to the presidential primaries, and that new voters are those who are the most likely to lose their resolve and not show up to vote when they become discouraged.

Hillary Clinton’s support, on the other hand, tends to come from the institutional Democratic Party and its extensions at the state and local level. Longtime Democrats who have been regular voters are more likely to support a candidate who reminds them of Democrats in the past, rather than someone who challenges Democrats to break with the past.

If voters are getting turned off by Bill Clinton’s smarmy attacks against Barack Obama, and want to stop participating in the 2008 presidential primary elections, it’s more likely that those who walk away in disgust will be Barack Obama’s supporters. I think that Bill Clinton knows that, and is purposefully trying to create low voter turnout in the Super Tuesday primaries, so that Hillary Clinton can win.

Consider how, every time that one of Bill Clinton’s stupid comments gets publicity in the news, he doesn’t apologize and back off. He comes out the next day and says something even more outrageous. Bill Clinton knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s trying to drive everyone out of the Democratic primaries except for the people who are supporters of the establishment Clinton machine, and will put up with anything that Bill Clinton does.

En lieu of the recent posts on the main blog about the FISA ordeal, I thought I should share this little story I came across when I logged on to Yahoor today.

(Link)

Senate delays eavesdropping vote
By PAMELA HESS, Associated Press Writer2 hours, 39 minutes ago

The Senate on Thursday signaled support for granting legal immunity to telecommunications companies that helped the government conduct warrantless eavesdropping, a sign that the contentious provision may be headed for approval next week.

On a strong 60-36 vote, senators rejected an amendment that would have killed the immunity provision and strengthened the powers of a secret court to oversee the surveillance of phone calls and e-mails that involve people inside the United States.

Further action on the legislation was delayed until Monday, pushing Congress closer to a Feb. 1 deadline for enacting a new law. If a new law is not signed by the president by then, some eavesdropping practices that are now legal would be prohibited.

The Bush administration is insisting that any new law also protect from potentially crippling civil lawsuits those telecommunications companies that helped the government eavesdrop on Americans after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, R-Nev., blamed Republicans for the delay, saying they were trying to block a series of amendments majority Democrats sought to offer.

“It appears the president and Republicans want failure. They don’t want a bill,” Reid said.

The draft bill, written by the Senate Intelligence Committee, would update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The law, first enacted in 1978, dictates when federal agents must obtain court permission before tapping phone and computer lines inside the United States to gather intelligence on foreign threats. Agents may tap lines outside the country without court oversight.

It was the second time in six weeks the Senate had taken up the FISA modernization bill, only to see action stymied. Reid abruptly closed down debate in December when it became clear the Senate couldn’t finish work before the holiday break.

Most vexing to the intelligence agencies, without an extension of the law the government would return to needing individual court orders to listen in on any communication that passes through U.S. telecommunications switches and computer servers — even those that are between people who are outside the country. This is not required by FISA, according to legal experts, but became the practice over time to provide firms with legal protections.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, and Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., on Thursday proposed extending the existing law for 30 days to buy the Senate additional time to produce a bill. The House completed its version of the bill last fall.

In a move to resolve the immunity issue, the key impasse on the legislation, the White House ended months of resistance Thursday and agreed to give House members access to secret documents about its warrantless wiretapping program.

The Bush administration is trying to persuade the House to agree to retroactively shield from liability those companies that helped the government eavesdrop on Americans without the approval of the FISA court. About 40 such civil lawsuits are pending against telecommunications firms, and the administration says if the cases go forward they could reveal information that would compromise national security. It also contends that the companies could be bankrupted if the lawsuits are successful.

The companies were helping the administration carry out the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program, a still-classified effort that intercepted communications on U.S. soil without oversight from the FISA court from Sept. 11, 2001, to Jan. 17, 2007.

Reyes and Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House intelligence panel, requested access to the White House documents in May. House Democrats say they will not support telecom immunity without seeing them first. Some senators were given access to the documents last fall.

The documents include the president’s authorization of warrantless wiretapping, Justice Department legal opinions going back to 2001, and the requests sent to the telecommunications companies asking for their assistance.

I’m trying really hard to be surprised these days…really hard…

In the summer of the North, Greenland lost record amounts of ice last year, and the Arctic Ocean’s summer ice cap was reduced to a small size never seen before. Now it’s the summer of the South, and the same activity is being seen in Antarctica, which is losing its ice at a rate almost as fast as Greenland. The rate of ice loss, according to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has increased by 75 percent over the last ten years because glaciers are speeding up in their flow to the Antarctic seas. That happens when water from the melting ice lubricates the bottom of the glacier, easing its flow over the ground beneath.

The team’s results do not include data from 2007, the second-warmest year on record. Eric Rignot, who led the study, comments, “Ice sheets are responding faster to climate warming than anticipated.”

In his latest eruption of idiocy, Bill Clinton says of his wife Hillary, “She and John McCain are very close. They always laugh that if they wind up being the nominees of their parties, it would be the most civilized election in American history and probably put the voters to sleep.”

Ha. Ha. Ha… What?!?

Since when would it be a good thing to put the voters to sleep?

This statement by Bill Clinton is doing Hillary Clinton no favors. It exhibits everything that’s wrong with the Hillary Clinton campaign. As a senator, Hillary Clinton has made cozy allegiances with Republicans, and voted along with them to advance their agenda.

Hillary Clinton has become “very close” with John McCain, and will be civilized if she runs against him for President, but she treats Barack Obama like a dog, with robocalls that slur “Barack Hussein Obama”.

Why the hell would Democrats want a presidential nominee who treats Republicans with kid gloves, but attacks fellow Democrats with savagery?

Bill Clinton’s comment is also a not very subtle warning to the activist progressive Democratic grassroots: The Clintons will run a “civilized” campaign, which means that the backbone gets thrown out the window. Uppity grassroots Democrats who demand strong action against the Republicans will not be tolerated. Progressives will be shut out of the process. This confirms my suspicion that Bill Clinton is determined to keep new Democratic voters out of power.

Hey, if you want a Democratic presidential nominee who will go soft on the Republican agenda, and follow the Joseph Lieberman path of giving a big hug John McCain and his plans for an American presence in Iraq of 50 years, then Hillary Clinton is a good pick for you.

If you want a Democratic presidential nominee who will actually represent Democrats, then you’ll need to vote for someone else.

As for myself, let me make this clear, Bill Clinton: This Democrat will not go to sleep.

Robocalls are tacky even when they carry the best of messages. I hate it when I get a telephone call in the middle of dinner, and it’s just some machine playing a pre-recorded message to me from some politician who wants my vote. The message doesn’t let me talk back and give my opinion. It just gives me that robotic message and then hangs up.

How rude.

This politician thinks that I’m going to vote for someone who doesn’t even have the decency to have a human being talk to me? No. Politicians who use robocalls are indicating the disrespect they have for voters, and suggest that if they’re elected, they won’t listen.

Robocalls get even worse, though, when they’re used by a politician to attack another candidate. That’s what Hillary Clinton has been doing in South Carolina, and she’s been doing it to attack John Edwards. John Edwards, for goodness sakes!

Maybe this is why Hillary Clinton had such a miserable showing in South Carolina.

Interrupt voters’ private time to have a robot spew a negative message at them over the telephone? Only the Clintons could be so arrogant as to think that would help their campaign.

Whatever little tender moment Hillary Clinton was able to create in New Hampshire has been destroyed with tactics like this. Why can’t she learn to stay positive?

This far out blast from the past come from the Democratic Caucus:

How much did a gallon of gasoline cost when George W. Bush took office (and I put the emphasis on took)?

$1.39

Can you imagine how much your monthly budget would change if the price of gasoline were back down to that level?

It can be done - if America invests heavily in solar, wind, and geothermal power. When I say “America invests”, I mean the American government.

Let’s end the economy-destroying military occupation of Iraq, and redirect that budget to implementing green power, back here in the USA where the investment will be returned to the government in the form of taxes resulting from a stronger, more efficient economy. Those bullets in Iraq don’t bring anyone any economic benefit. Windmills keep on giving, long after their initial deployment.

Drop energy prices, not bombs.

In dissecting what went wrong for Hillary Clinton in South Carolina, some attention needs to be given to the issue of time. Exit polls show that Clinton’s greatest segment of support came from people who had made up their minds over one month ago.

That means that it’s likely that something happened in the last month that made undecided voters choose to not vote for Clinton. What was it that happened? It’s hard to say for sure. It might have been Barack Obama’s come-from-behind victory in the Iowa caucuses.

On the other hand, it might have been the attacks that went back and forth between the Clinton and Obama campaigns over the last couple of weeks. The same exit polls show that while 70 percent of voting South Carolina Democrats thought that Clinton’s attacks against Obama were unfair, only 57 percent of voting South Carolina Democrats thought that Obama’s attacks against Clinton were unfair.

Whatever the reality of which attacks were accurate and fair, it seems that Clinton came out of the squabbles looking the worse.

Many in the corporate world are having a knee jerk reaction to support the Republican proposal to, through the extension of the Protect America Act in the FISA Amendments Act, give telecommunications companies legal immunity from the assistance they have given to the government in conducting massive electronic spying operations against American citizens while those operations were against the law. Their automatic impulse is to support the Republican Party. In this case, however, to do so is directly in contradiction to their economic interests.

Corporations do have a responsibility to the government - to follow the law. Corporations also have responsibilities to their customers, to honor their privacy agreements. If corporations show that their legal agreements with customers no longer have any weight, what basis is there for trust in the marketplace any longer?

It is absolutely to claim that America can only be secure from terrorism when the government is allowed to conduct massive electronic spying operations against American citizens AND businesses without any judicial review or congressional oversight. In fact, America cannot be secure from terrorism when power over communications is so centralized that free and open communication within and between corporations and citizens is limited by self-censorship. A nation of citizens afraid to talk to each other openly is a nation where no one, including the government can know what is going on.

The FISA Amendments Act legislation goes far beyond reasonable reform. It is a threat to the independence of business from government and to the liberty of the individual citizen.

No one can conduct business when they aren’t assured of private communications. If people in business believe that government spies may be eavesdropping upon any of their electronic conversations, innovation, cooperation and sales will grind down until they are excruciatingly slow. Without the ability to secure proprietary information, all the competitive advantages built up over the last 15 years through the development of electronic communication would come to naught.

The FISA Amendments Act would indeed give legal immunity to corporations like AT&T, Google and Yahoo, for cooperating with the federal government in spying against Americans’ private communications. However, that legal immunity is no protection. In fact, such immunity would strip corporations of any legal justification for refusing to cooperate with government electronic spying programs.

If the FISA Amendments Act, no company could guarantee its customers privacy. That would have a chilling effect on all business, not just individual communication.

The American economy cannot function without freedom of speech, the right to free assembly, and the protection from unreasonable search and seizure. That’s why American business ought to come together with civil libertarians and demand that the FISA Amendments Act be voted down by the United States Senate.

We’ve been writing about the Protect America Act here at Irregular Times now for about six months, so our regular readers know the danger of the law, which allows functionally unrestricted electronic spying against American citizens by the U.S. government. The FISA Amendments Act, which would renew the Protect America Act, and make its spy powers permanent, is now being debated in the Senate, but an equivalent law, only lacking telecommunications corporate immunity, has already been passed.

Though that House vote is done with, there still is something that can be done about it. Punish the Democrats who betrayed the American people by voting in favor of government spying against us.

In Georgia, one of the congressional Democrats who has been targeted by outraged Democratic voters is Representative Jim Marshall. Jim Marshall has a long record of collaboration with the Bush Republicans. He voted for Patriot Act, and the Military Commissions Act, and for starting the Iraq War too. Whenever a vital vote comes up in Congress, Jim Marshall falls in with the failed ideology of George W. Bush.

Democrat Robert Nowak has stood up to challenge Jim Marshall in this year’s congressional primary. But, is Nowak a better Democrat than Jim Marshall? Oh, you bet he is.

Here’s what Robert Nowak has to say about Jim Marshall’s support for the Protect America Act, and its programs of government spying against law-abiding American citizens:

“The latest demand from President Bush, that the US Congress shield telecommunication providers from liability for breaking federal law, is a real step backwards in the important mission of authorizing an effective intelligence surveillance program. Congress should not give blanket immunity for any unlawful acts, and it should renew its call for increased oversight of the telecom providers that may have broken federal surveillance laws.

Further, the US Congress must not budge in insisting that any surveillance program with the capability of eavesdropping on US citizens be subject to court oversight.

Congress should insist on codifying in the statute a court order requirement for any surveillance done on American citizens.

This last August, Representative Marshall voted for a temporary bill that allowed for expanded wiretapping and surveillance on Americans without a court order. Allowing that regime to continue is unacceptable.”

I saw this calendar in the shopping mall today, and it pretty much says everything that needs to be said about the presidential campaign of Rudolph Giuliani.

Giuliani was engaged in a giant sadistic bet. He was betting that Americans would still be so terrified of the weak terrorist threat that they would clamor to him, begging to be rescued. Save us, Rudy! Save us, Sir Rudolph! So, Giuliani sat, counting down the days, waiting for the terrorist attack that he was sure would come, to propel him to victory. Alas for Giuliani’s plans, but nicely for the rest of us, no terrorists have had the werewithal to attack. The spectre of a looming attack has proven to be just a spectre.

So it is that Giuliani’s new year has been stuck in the past, right next to Father Knows Best calendars, as at the shopping mall. Giuliani’s time is long over.

Bye bye, Rudolph.

A spaceship sent from Earth to explore the planet Mercury has discovered a giant spider living there. The creature is 40 kilometers wide.

Scientists writing for the magazine New Scientist (what happened to the old scientist, I’d like to know) admit that they categorize the meeting of the spaceship and the spider was a “close encounter”. Yet, trying to be coy, so as not to provoke panic among Earthlings, the scientists merely called the spider a “strange spider-shaped feature”.

Well, let’s think now. What is most shaped like a spider? Answer: A spider! Clearly, the most obvious explanation for this “spider-shaped feature” is that it’s a spider.

Besides, the name of the Earth spaceship that was sent to Mercury was Messenger. Any fool can understand that one does not send a messenger to a place where it is believed that there is no one to hear a message. Scientists, it seems, have known about the giant spider living on Mercury for some time, and they have reason to believe that the Mercury spider is intelligent enough to understand out language.

What else can this giant spider do? Travel through outer space, perhaps?

The bad news: There is not believed to be very much for spiders to eat on the planet Mercury. That goes double for a giant spider.

Earth, on the other hand, is filled with food - enough to feed even a giant 40-kilometer spider for years.

We can expect that giant spider from Mercury to visit the Earth soon, and we should expect it to be very hungry.

Prepare your underground shelter now.