Author Archives: liberalgeek

Radio Spot Moves Closer

As DelawareLiberal moves closer to advertising on some of the local media outlets, I would like to remind you that we are still looking for suggestions about the content and format of those ads. This is a chance to show off your creativity, humor and/or knowledge. Please post any ideas (even partially formed) to be kicked around and vetted both in the DelawareLiberal community and among our crack team of writers. I am a big fan of open-source everything, so this is an excellent example of how it can work to make this project really go.

Bush Family Pet to Resign

British PM Tony Blair will announce his resignation in the next week. With that move, the Bush family will have to house break another pet before they can make him do tricks (like roll-over and play dead). Blair has fallen from grace in the UK mostly due to his ties to BushCo. He is yet another world leader who has lost his job because of that relationship. Thank God the Bulgarians haven’t pulled their 155 troops out of the coalition of the willy-nilly.

I found this quote from when the Italians pulled out after Prodi beat Berlusconi largely on the Iraq issue.

“The Italian contingent is going back. The mission is accomplished — the security of the province is in your hands”, Minister of Defence Arturo Parisi said to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

That’s the key. Let’s just say that the mission is accomplished, but leave instead of staying until the last throes are complete. Happy Mission Accomplished Day everyone.

Tracking Progress on Wind Support

I am trying to compile a list of the politicians that support wind power and those that support the burning of fossil fuels. The list appears at the bottom of the “Choose Wind” page I posted here. So far, I have 2 of the people that I have been top supporters of each. Jack Markell on the pro-wind side and Governor Minner on the pro-pollution side. If you have additions on either side that you would like to add, please post them here. I have a few others to add, but let’s make sure that we know who is in favor of the environment and who is bowing to special interests.

As I said in the original post, we will remember where the politicians cast their lot when it comes election time. Jason has already thrown his support behind a forward-thinking Republican on this issue. This is just the start.

Please post any known political stances in the comments here or on the Choose Wind page’s comments. I will update the page accordingly.

Around the Horn Friday: Veto Imminent Edition

Well the legislative branch has grown some cajones. Sure the chimp is going to veto the bill that funds the war, but requires that troops be withdrawn on October 1. So be it. The best part is that Bush will get it on the anniversary of his famous “Mission Accomplished” speech. Sorry this post is so late in the day. It was a busy one.

So on with the round-up of the best of the weeks blog postings, Dana is keeping the pressure on Thurman Adams. This time because he won’t allow the Senate to vote on an apology for slavery.

Nancy is highlighting the 20th anniversary of Chernobyl and the dead city of Pripyat. It is as radioactive as Bush these days.

Atkins just won’t go away. Mike Matthews has a nice rundown of some of the machinations going on in that strange part of the world. Jud, the only guy keeping the lights on at First State Politics, has some analysis of the political implications of the Beermeister of the fightin’ 41st. Dana has a story on the trouble brewing with the whole babysitter angle. At least he is a good writing subject. He’s like the Paris Hilton of Delaware.

Ryan at Liberal Delight has a bunch of more (Oregon’s Governor) or less (Hube’s special visitor) interesting tidbits.

Karmic Jay insists that his blog is not becoming a food blog. The exception proves the rule, as he only posted 2 stories and both are food… Have a good trip Jay.

Kavips made my week by highlighting one of my stories and running it out.

And it looks like someone else has admin rights to Donviti’s old blog… Bye, bye delawhare.

Joe at Merit Bound Alley took my challenge to heart last week and blasted me for claiming he is on the brink of obsolescence. He has pulled back from the brink slightly with a story about how W is alienating the only group that likes him just the way he is. The title is priceless.

Mike Mahaffie is urging us to ask for “Serenity Now!” with regard to global warming. Change something about how you use resources this year. I’m replacing all of my old incandescents with the compact flourescents (yes, I know not to throw them away).

At Pencader Days, Duffy has a good point about what we can learn about inequality from listening to Reade Seligmann.

MOT Newbie is full of something. And it smells. Bring it on, brutha.

Ryan over at JttR goes from bad to worse. First, he posts an inane list of things that are bad, then uses hero/hack to praise the Pope, blast the UN and blast Democrats for flying to the debate. Ah, it was good to know nothing once…

Paul Smith ruminates about a dumb question asked by Duffy comparing the attention-seeking behavior of baseball streakers to the attention-seeking behavior of the VT killer. “It isn’t in the same ballpark, it isn’t even the same sport.” If the guy running across the field had just shot 30 people in the stadium, I bet you the prize of your choosing that the camera would follow that streaker until he was thrown in jail.

Kilroy is going off on middle school education in DE. It sucked 25 years ago when I was a student, it sucked 15 years ago when I was a student teacher, and it sucks now…

Finally, Hube is bitching about voter fraud. Remember that is what the bushies wanted their US Attorneys pursuing. Many were fired because they couldn’t find it. Good luck supressing the vote. It may be the Republic Party’s only hope…

Update: Don’t miss Tommywonk’s post on Farm Policy and Fat people.  I think I can now blame my weight on Ronald Reagan.

Let’s get this Party Started – Wind Power

Hi all. I have added a page that outlines what each and every one of us can do to make wind power a reality. It is a blueprint for how to apply pressure to the various branches of government to get maximize our chances of getting our wind farm approved. This page is now always visible at the top of DelawareLiberal.

If you are a casual reader, read the page and see how you can get involved.

If you are a blogger, please link to it so that we can maximize our exposure here.

If you are a politician, consider yourself on notice. We will not be deterred.

  • If NGR wins because of the actions of politicians, those actions will be called to account.
  • If NRG wins because of inaction of politicians, see above.
  • If NRG wins, please watch this space for the politicians that deserve kudos for fighting on the right side.
  • If Bluewater wins, we all win.

We can win this fight by applying the requisite pressure. We already have the support of many people on both sides of the aisle, politically. Please help out with this effort. We will be adding information to the page over the course of the next few days, but we need to get started now. So check back regularly for more refined ideas. (h/t JS, DR & TN).

Ho Hum…More Republican Ignorance, Stupidity and a Smidgen of Fascism

Here is America’s Mayor:

MANCHESTER, N.H. Rudy Giuliani said if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001.

But if a Republican is elected, he said, especially if it is him, terrorist attacks can be anticipated and stopped.

“If any Republican is elected president — and I think obviously I would be the best at this — we will remain on offense and will anticipate what [the terrorists] will do and try to stop them before they do it,” Giuliani said.

Ahhh. I love the smell of horse manure on a spring day. So here we go again. Electing a Democrat will cause another September 11th. That’s why September 11th happened on Bill Clinton’s watch… Oh strike that. It was probably the fault of the Democratic Congress… No that isn’t right either…I’m going to have to go with activist judges for $1000.

Rudy, you should pack it in now if this is the best that you’ve got. Head on back to Manhattan and shack up with another future ex-wife, you lousy excuse for a human being.

Geeks Smell Something Fishy in OH

This is a little factoid that may seem too geeky to comprehend for many people, but here goes.

Every website on the Internet referes to one or more IP addresses. These addresses are unique (with a few unimportant exceptions) on the Internet. We can use these IP addreses to identify people on the Internet using a database of people that the IP addresses have been assigned to (usually ISPs or companies).

On election eve last year in 2004 the State of Ohio’s election website had a change of IP address. This in and of itself is not a surprise. The site was likely going to get bombarded with requests in the next few days, so you want to make sure the servers can handle it. However the IP address that it redirected to was owned by a company called Smartech. It is interesting to look at the other websites that Smartech hosts or hosted. Here is a representative sample:

georgebush.com
gop.com
johnmccain.com
newt.org
republicanvictoryteam.org

So to sum up, the OH election website was transferred to the Republican party on election day. Does anyone else find this bizarre and/or evil?

Fascism Begins at Home

I really dislike the term fascist.  It has been misused by the 16-22 year old set for decades.  Fascism isn’t enforcing drinking age laws.  But we have heard more and more references to fascism from people that actually know a fascist when they see one.  And they all seem to be looking at W.  This is laid out convincingly by the Guardian today.  I think it is a level-headed analysis of where we are redrawing the lines in America.(h/t Fred)

I have often invoked the story of the boiling frog when discussing what has happened in this country in the past 6 years.  You cannot boil a frog by throwing him into a pot of boiling water, he’ll just jump out.  But if you put that frog in a pot at room temperature and slowly warm the water to boiling, you got yourself a poached frog.

Katie Couric as an Analog to Iraq

The Philadelphia Inquirer has a story about how CBS insiders are calling Katie Couric “an expensive, unfixable mistake.”  I really don’t give a damn about Katie Couric, I’m sure she is a nice person.  But this reminded me of another expensive unfixable mistake.  Fortunately the CBS unfixable mistake doesn’t cost billions of dollars and thousands of lives.  Ironically, if more people think the same thing about Ms. Couric, CBS will cut their losses and get rid of their expensive, unfixable mistake.  We have to wait until January 2009 to get rid of our expensive, unfixable mistake.

One Down, One to Go

Just a week ago Bryon Short was elected in the 7th in a surprise to many in the Republic party. However, Today I start harping on Lynn Bullock for the seat of the ever-present John Atkins, State Representative of the fightin’ 41st. Lynn is a retired State Policeman (so he has probably met JA a few times) and former Mayor of Millsboro. We have a real good chance of wining this. The district has more registered D’s than R’s, JA is going to siphon off write-in votes, and I suspect that there will be some backlash on the R’s because of the whole JA debacle.

I’m not going to get all “redstate.org” on you about this, but Lynn does need help. I will be posting information about how to help as it becomes available, but for now, the best way to help is by contacting Kristin Dwyer at DelDems or sign up to help here. The election is May 5th and I am certain that they could use all the help they can get down in Millsboro.

This election is a Tipping Point. At the start of all of this business, we had a 5 vote deficit in the House. If we win this one, we cut that deficit to one. The Republic party isn’t cohesive enough today to hold most votes with a one vote majority. Plus this will put us on strong footing for the next election cycle where we will regain control of both houses.

The election is May 5th. Lynn Bullock is the candidate. Please give what you can (time, effort, money, lip service) to help Lynn Win.

Around the Horn Friday: Remember the Hokies Edition

We’re back again with another installment of around the horn. This week has been gut-wrenching as the horror of VT came more into focus as the week progressed. It may have been the best thing for Gonzo, though, as many people just had to turn off the TV after the latest news from Blacksburg and missed the ass-whipping that Gonzo received.

Local blogger news is that Donviti has decided to drop his blog to better balance his life. On the flip-side, he will be a regular contributer here, so don’t get too excited you nasty neocons.

Another DL contributer, Tommywonk, will be appearing on Saturday with Voldemort Hube on WILM at 10:30AM. Be sure to tune in (although I’ll be out of town, so I’ll have to get the reviews secondhand).

Our favorite drinking buddy was in the local news again this week. As far as I can tell the scoop came from the super-blogger Celia Cohen with her duck-inspired post about the way the Republicans are going to be destroyed in the 41st because of the Atkins write-in campaign. Riffs on this issue were made at Down with Absolutes, Delaware Way, and by Jason here at DL. On the right, Hube covers it over at the Colossus of Rhodey. Bottom line, no one in their right mind would vote for John Atkins, but there are a lot of Republicans in the 41st… 🙂

On the right this week there was a lot of fist pumping over the SCOTUS decision on partial-birth abortion. Paul over at Gazziza was predictably happy and makes the point that I think should have been made years ago, the election of Bush and his subsequent SCOTUS appointments are moving the line on abortion rights.

One of the pleasant developments this week was the election of Bryon Short over Wayne Smith’s neighbor. The shockwaves created by this event may very well have lead to the Cathcart chuck-and-duck (h/t Buddy Ryan) yesterday. It is certainly bothering the conservative side of DE politics. Take Jud’s Rant, usually an annoying bleating, I sensed real fear in his writing.

Dana has a great post about Pete McCloskey, a former Republican Presidential candidate and his decision to turn Democrat. Now if only we could convince Dave Burris…

On a lighter note, over at Karmic Musings, Jay has a link to a story at NPR about the food critic that just won the Pulitzer for criticism (I’m shooting for that title next year, I think my family has won this award several times). I heard the story also, and it did encourage me to try a few new foods next time I’m in California.

Back to reality, Kavips has a post about how Darth Cheney caused this war to enrich himself and his friends.

Over at Liberal Delight, Ryan is jumping off of the Phillies bandwagon. 10% is in the can and Ryan is done with them. He does have some helpful suggestions, though. Mark my words, Ryan. They will come back stronger soon. If I’ve learned anything as a Philadelphia sports fan, it’s that Philly teams never break your heart in a way that frees up the rest of the season. You’ll get back on the wagon just in time to ride it off of the cliff.

The VT shootings brought Merit-bound alley back from the brink of obsolescence. I thought that this post summed it up quite well.

Mike over at Mike’s Musings has returned from vacation that sounds terrific to comment on the national coverage of our favorite local drunk.

If Jason’s return from anonymity has done nothing else, it has drawn out comments from the diaper-changing MOT Newbie. This time it is to rescue his own comment about Christine O’Donnell and riff on it.

Duffy, over at PencaderDays is a little bit pissy about the liberal media. He is mad that whenever there is a scandal involving a conservative Democrat, the media always says conservative first. Funny thing, those adjectives, they tend to appear before the modified noun. Oh, and when they are talking about corrupt conservative Democrats, the corrupt part of them is the conservative part, that’s the other reason it appears first…

Mike Protack has been drinking the Kool-Aid again. I must say that I have trouble with any plan involving my money that starts with “The idea, promoted by the Heritage Foundation…” I could get no further…

Into Good and Evil is struggling with the bloggers dilemma of “Why post about life, when I should be living it?” So we only see photos of his Jeep and mountain bike. Presumably, the bike is good and the Jeep is evil…

Over at JttR, Ryan is in favor of guns in the classroom. I must say that I am skeptical that more guns is the answer, but hey, I’m not taking any classes with Ryan. Although at UD, I was noted for shooting off at the mouth…

I think Kilroy has a much more palatable take on the VT shootings. May be the highest degree of agreement that I have had with Kilroy, since I have been reading his blog.

Have a good weekend all, and hug ’em if you got ’em.