Blackberry and iPhones and The 24-Hour Worker

Shel Holzt writes about the developing 24-hour work cycle and he seems to think it's a good thing. I'm not certain of that, but before I take him to task, I will report that I've learned that such an addiction to electronic communications devices is not a good health practice. In fact, it's called just the term I used "an addiction."

The DailyMail reports

Blackberry email devices can be so addictive that owners may need to be weaned off them with treatment similar to that given to drug users, experts warned today.

Wow. The DailyMail Online goes on to explain that overuse can be damaging to mental health. But interestingly it doesn't say why. Let's speculate. Perhaps overuse causes severe memory loss, because without checking your iPhone -- I have an i Phone -- you realized you actually don't remember anything. You've given up remembering because you check your iPhone all the damn time.

Cal Tree Sitters - Save The Oaks v. UC and The UC Police - Video Documentary

For me, covering what turned out to be this three-part video documentary started with a call from a friend and fellow Cal Alum who said that I should get "down there" with my camera because there was no video on what was happening. So, fresh from a meeting, and with two hours to spare, I went over to the Grove in front of Cal Memorial Stadium, the site of the clash between the Cal Tree Sitters and the UC Administration and Police.

The overall story is that we -- Cal -- needs an upgraded stadium facility and the plans for this have been in the works for almost ten years. With the success of Cal Coach Jeff Tedford, it became easier to raise money toward this objective. As part of the effort , the University of California was able to secure $500 million from British Petroleum, most of which would go to the creation of a new research institute, and the rest toward what will be an athletic facility upgrade -- a new training center where the Grove is.

This has caused a round of protests led by a group called "Save The Oaks" and Running Wolf, who ran for Mayor of Berkeley and a man who calls himself "Air."

This video -- which I will elaborate on soon -- is of three days: Tuesday June 17th, Wednesday June 18th, and Thursday June 19th. On Wednesday, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Barbara Miller issued a rulling that did not halt construction but did place a rejection on the University's current approach using the Grove. The Grove is near a faultline and the plan was just that the University could not build given its current approach. The Tree Sitters saw this as a victory.

On Thursday, the third video shows horror. Protesters stopping traffic and preventing parents from getting home to their kids and families. And one woman a mother with her kid and reportedly a California Deputy Attorney General, was arrested for nothing other than just standing trying to get the police to clear traffic so she could get her kid from soccer practice.

In this, both protester and police are to blame for a terrible set of events. You be the judge. I think Cal could have avoided this with better planning.

More later.

The media stopped following the money: CONFLICT of INTEREST

Was it big oil money pouring into the "McCain Victory '08 Fund," as the sudden change in McCain’s stand on drilling in environmentally sensitive areas suggests? How will we ever know? There’s no benefit to a commercial news outlet in uncovering the source of the RNC PAC/527 money...

It got interesting in April, but almost nobody reported it...

Once Senator John McCain and the RNC began circumventing the McCain/Feingold limits via the creation of the "McCain Victory '08 Fund" with its $70,000 per individual donations they really left presumptive Democratic nominee Senator Barack Obama with no reason to keep extending his offer to limit campaign spending by accepting public financing. They sprang into faux outrage, of course, ready to accuse him of a flip-flop despite the fact they'd not accepted Obama's conditional offer. Follow the money, not the spin, and you discover that this has gone virtually unreported. The commercial media outlets have a conflict of interest; reporting on the McCain fund undermines their profits.

Here's the simple truth:

The more money McCain (or Obama) has to spend, the more the media stands to earn on selling commercials. Selling not only to the two campaigns, but to PACs and 527s and anybody else who will buy air-time. The media clearly have a vested interest in not just ratings, but more so in the demand for commercials, and so the closer the race - and the more money the candidates (or parties, or 527s, etc.) raise - the more money the media outlets make by selling. Why report on McCain's funding success? Much better business to take advantage of all that cash, not cut off the former campaign reformer now laying golden eggs. It's their bottom line at stake, same as it ever was.


Talk about a conflict of interest.Was it big oil money pouring in, as the sudden change in McCain's stand on drilling in environmentally sensitive areas suggests? How will we ever know? There's no benefit to a commercial news outlet in uncovering the source of the money - they are just trying to get their piece of it.

read more | digg story

McCain Gets Around FEC $2300 Donation Limits - way around!

To help ease their fund-raising woes, John McCain’s campaign has devised a new system to increase the maximum amount an individual can donate to the unofficial Republican nominee’s election efforts. The new structure allows up to $70,000 in individual contributions by channeling the money into different McCain-centric funds.

From the Wall Street Journal almost two months ago:

The idea is to tap donors for more than the $2,300 limit set by campaign finance laws. Under legislation pushed by McCain in his role as a senator from Arizona, an individual can donate a maximum of $2,300 to a presidential primary campaign and the same amount to the general election campaign...

The new structure allows up to $70,000 in individual contributions by channeling the money into different McCain-centric funds. The first $2,300 of that would go to McCain’s primary campaign. The Republican National Committee would receive $28,500 of the donation. The remaining funds would be divided equally, up to $10,000 a piece, among four states the campaign has designated as battlegrounds for November: Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado and New Mexico.

So, here's the maverick reformer, all hot and bothered that Obama got tired of waiting for him to match the offer on public funding, but does McCain's rhetoric match his actions? Clearly not. It's no wonder Obama moved on - McCain had built his way to circumvent the limits back in April!

read more in W.S.Journal | digg Journal story

From the Huffington Post, also back in April:

The media has been abuzz over speculation that John McCain will accept public financing in the general election. The attention has overshadowed a new fund structure that will allow the McCain camp to collect significantly more money than the individual limits placed by the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill.

The article reports further on an open letter from the non-partisan organization Public Campaign Action Fund to McCain asking that he drop the system:

This joint fundraising committee, called McCain Victory '08 Fund, will allow your campaign to accept contributions as large as $70,000, according to the New York Times - an amount that is far in excess of contribution limits for candidates and political parties put in place by your own campaign finance law, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, also known as McCain-Feingold. Your willingness to evade the spirit of McCain-Feingold sets a poor precedent for whomever the Democratic Party nominates as your general election opponent. It also sends a signal that your campaign is less serious about the importance of participating in the public financing system in the general. Indeed, even if you were to participate, you and your campaign are exploiting a loophole and will be still be courting wealthy donors who could donate tens of thousands to the McCain Victory '08 Fund.

You and your campaign will describe this activity as legally sound. But that does not make it right.

Are these the above-board actions of a candidate interested in campaign reform? Certainly his reaction doesn't bode well for reform, and the fact that the structures are in place shines clear light on why Obama doesn't want to accept the spending restrictions that come with accepting public funding when the Republicans have hatched and implemented a scheme to circumvent the whole system!

Digg Huffington Post article | read full Huffington Post story

CNN's Paul Begala - Republican Or Democrat?

I just saw CNN Contributor and former Clinton Aide Paul Begala on "The Situation Room" talking "in defense" of Barack Obama on Campaign Finance and on NAFTA against a Republican Strategist who I will not name because it doesn't matter.

Begala sounded like he was half in support of Obama and half sympathetic to John McCain. Meanwhile the Republican Strategist was consistently on the attack against Obama. Paul did not effectively hit back. What's up?

Is Paul still smarting from Clinton's loss?

Obama gets AFSCME endorsement - Democratic unity growing

According to the Associated Press: Senator Barack Obama secured the endorsement of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees [AFSCME], a large and influential union that had been backing his former Democratic rival Senator Clinton (D-NY) until she suspended her campaign.

AFSCME is the largest union for workers in public service with 1.4 million politically motivated members nationwide. The unification of the two camps to put a Democrat in the White House is well underway.

For discussion of what this means to and for Clinton backers, you can also visit an AFSCME discussion thread by atdnext at ClintonistasForObama.blogspot.com. Take note that this is a sign of healing in progress, that the members of AFSCME know who they want in the Oval Office beginning in January.

read more | digg story

Barack Obama Refused Public Financing For General Election

This is one of the news items of the day. Senator Barack Obama has annouced today that he is not going to use taxpayer money to finance his campaign for President of the United States.

To date, Senator Obama has raised more than $200 million in donations most smaller than $200 - unprecedented. Here's Senator Obama's message:

Leigh Steinberg's 22nd Super Bowl Party: Scottsdale, AZ - Video

This is the video account of Leigh Steinberg's 22nd Super Bowl Party. This one held at the Botanical Gardens outside Scottsdale, Arizona. The video features an interview with Leigh where he talks about the "Green Initiative" he's started, Ricky Williams, and "Athletes for Obama."

Republicanmarket - Racists At The Texas Republican Convention

Republicanmarket - Racists At The Texas Republican Convention

This sad report comes from the blog Great Lakes, Great Times, Great Scott, where it's reported that a button reading "If Obama's President, Will We Still Call It The White House" was being sold. The button is made by a company called "Republicanmarket" which claims to sell "Patriotic and Republican Products."

So racism is patriotic? I think they meant idiotic.

All bloggers -- Great Lakes, Great Times, Great Scott, burntorangereport.com, this blog, and more -- are calling for you to contact that organization and discourage them from using the mental illness of racism to make a buck.

You can email them at sales@republicanmarket.com. You should also contact Tina Benkiser, the head of the Texas GOP at info@texasgop.org and share your feeling with her.

Why is it that Republicans are generally associated with racist thought? I guess examples like this are why. But in an age where racism has been identified as a mental illness, you'd think the party would rush to avoid any associations with people who exhibit paranoid delusion.

But no.

Buttons like that one confirm the idea that the Republican Party has been taken over by the lunatic fringe. So if you're a Hillary Clinton supporter still fighting the civil war, and moving over to the GOP side, look at who your associating with.

Want to be thought of as a person who should be in a rubber room?

First Day of Legal Gay Marriage In San Francisco - Video Account

This video covers the events outside San Francisco City Hall involving the first day of legal same sex marriage in San Francisco: Monday, June 16th, 2008 at 5:38 PM. A historic news and politics event. I went with the objective of determining the opinions of people in the crowd.

What would a hope monger do?

Imagine a hope-monger came across the following in a search log:

"michelle obama" promiscuous

So obviously somebody is looking for dirt. All a hope monger has to do is describe the tactic in a blog entry, and include a few keywords, and suddenly there is both more awareness -- good press -- and just "more to sort through" for those who seek to attack the Obamas.

And the word promiscuous can have little or nothing to do with sexuality, obviously.

Promiscuous, for instance, is a song recorded by Nelly Furtado and Timbaland for Furtado's third album, Loose, in 2006.

It can also mean consisting of diverse, unrelated parts or individuals, even confused, as in: "Throngs promiscuous strew the level green" (Alexander Pope)

Sometimes there's the looser meaning, "not selective" of a single class or person, as in: "Clinton was criticized for his promiscuous solicitation of campaign money." which was obviously intended to echo the crisis near the end of Bill Clinton's Presidency while discussing an unrelated topic.

Now... folks are obviously "panning the stream" to find evidence of deviance, or perversity, or anything of a sexual nature to use to cast aspersions on Michelle Obama.

This is your chance to be a hope monger, and add to the degree of difficulty for the smear mongers and those who seek to use divide and conquer political tactics a la Karl Rove. The more these words appear, the more the power of the search engines is diluted, and the more time the folks taking that approach spend reading what amazing people Senator Barack and Michelle Obama are.

Larry Sinclair Arrested After Sham NPC Press Conference Today

Larry Sinclair, the Obama smear-monger who admitted to this blogger his Texas parking tickets and other clues that lead to his Texas and not Minnesota dwelling, was arrested after what details reveal to be a "stupefiying" press conference held at The National Press Club today.

According to Ben Smith at Politico, Sinclair has a 27-year criminal record of "crimes of deceit" and is wanted in Colorado on charges that were not made clear to Smith.

Sinclair gave what blogger David Weigel reported a press conference that was a set of "amused bunch of people taking in a circus act." He also reported the antics of Sinclair's lawyer Montgomery Sibley:

It got worse when Sinclair's lawyer Montgomery Sibley—whose license is currently suspended in D.C. and Florida—showed up in a kilt and told reporters that his above-average endowment made slacks tight and uncomfortable.

Ok. Ok.

Afterward, Sinclair was immediately arrested by Washinton police on the Colorado charges. Talk about glass houses.