Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Cos' LiveJournal:

[ << Previous 20 ]

Thursday, January 1st, 2037
12:00 am	Other Places I Post I have two other LJs: cosmusic, coslinks See what links I've been reading on del.icio.us (coslinks),  and what links I've been promoting on reddit (cos) (if you use reddit, please check occasionally and rate my links up?) Photos: Some on my old web site, newer ones on Flickr (cospics) Videos: YouTube (youcos) Where are you? pin your location on the map, add yourself to my frappr group, and fill out my LJ poll. All Livejournals cos (14 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 14th, 2008
12:56 pm	Obama vs. Clinton: How over is it? A month ago I posted to show that Obama would win the Democratic nomination - that he'd already won enough votes and delegates to ensure his eventual victory, and there was no reasonable scenario for Clinton to campaign her way to a win.* Yesterday, Clinton won West Virginia 67% - 26% - 7% (Edwards), her second-biggest percentage win so far, and only the second state where she's hit 60%. She gave a victory speech where she implied she could still win. In case this leaves you wondering whether she's making a comeback, or has a chance, here's ( an update on the delegate math... ) Short answer: No. She's so far behind that her WV win actually left her worse off. Oregon will probably finish it. Update: Last night, John Edwards endorsed Obama. ( How this affects delegates... ) Overall, this probably means a +11 - +17 delegate gain for Obama, and cuts Clinton's possible advantage from seating Florida by ~6-13 depending on how Florida is handled. * Clinton could still be nominated if some big unexpected thing happens, such as a Spitzer-like scandal, but that's not something she can campaign for; if it happens, it'll happen, regardless of what she does. (38 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 13th, 2008
8:37 am	knitcetera "I'm in favor of dating evil." "Yeah, you never know when someone's in a tunnel." "I curse my beeper a lot, especially since it has the unique ability to sense when I'm naked. [...] It has a special nudity-detection system." Note: farwing was there, but none of these were from her. (12 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 6th, 2008
3:21 pm	transit I picked Country Club Castelfusano, a "tourist camping village", for our last night because of its proximity to Fiumicino airport, to make it easier for us to catch a 10am flight. Castelfusano is, by the way, apparently an actual old castle, though rather small. It and its surrounding grounds are penned in by a fence in the middle of the giant camping village - which contains a pizzeria plus two restaurants, swimming pool, jacuzzi / "fun area" (closed until later in the spring), games room, dance hall, meeting rooms ... oh, and some wild pigs and their cute little piglets. They're in a separate little fenced-in forest between the castle grounds and the camping bungalows. The castle is guarded by a bull, marked on the map by a picture of a bull. Indeed, they do have a shuttle bus to Fiumicino for 3 euro, but the earliest shuttle each day leaves at 8:30am, and with morning commute traffic that would not necessarily have gotten us to the airport in time, so we came up with another plan: take Castelfusano's free shuttle to the nearby commuter train station, take that train a few stops towards Rome, get off at Ostia center, and catch a public bus. We got the 7am shuttle bus, a 7:13 train, and were in Ostia center by 7:25. Ostia is very close to Fiumicino, but the co.tra.l bus meandered its way first through the center of Ostia, then Fiumicino (a town as well as an airport location) before dropping us off at the airport in front of a daunting series of terminals. None of their signs said "American Airlines" so we asked, and were directed to get on the airport terminal shuttle. As were people taking US Air, Continental, and others that were listed on the signs. According to a bit of fragmented Italian conversation I overheard on that airport shuttle, a brand new Terminal 5 had opened just one week earlier, and all flights to the USA now depart from there. This is apparently because the US was dissatisfied with security at the rest of the airport. After a private shuttle, a commuter train, a public bus, and an airport shuttle, we reached Terminal 5 and quickly found American Airlines check-in. Well, not check-in exactly, just some booths where they checked our documents and determined our worthiness to enter the USA. Then through some doors to another big hall, and there was check-in... where they checked our documents again, checked our bag, and gave us tickets. We were told to go to gate C25, directed through another door... and herded with the rest of the USA-bound travelers onto a bus. Everyone got off the bus into another airport building, where upon entry we saw a great big map of this new terminal with its gates numbered C20-C33, and up the escalator we went... not to the gates, it turns out, but to a platform to catch a light rail. As far as I could tell, the structure we were in served other purpose than to be a transfer station between the buses and the light rail. Everyone got on the same little train, which had only one other stop: the actual C20-C33 gates structure. Despite all of this, we got to sit for over 45 minutes before boarding. The agents at the gate checked our passports again (passport check #3) and, after not choosing either of us for the random extra screening, allowed us to proceed down the normal-looking gate extension, onto the plane. Err, no, that would be too simple. First came passport check #4. Then: another bus. (We're at JFK now, where there's real Internet. When we got past passport control & customs, someone tried to offer us a shuttle bus.) Edit: Home! Transport used: Private bus, commuter train, city bus, airport shuttle bus, airport bus 2, light rail, airport bus 3, plane, plane, private car. #1 through #8 to leave Italy, #8-10 the rest of the way home. Goodnight! (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
7:52 am	Italy I'm on Capri for the Inbar family "reunion". I put that in quotes because there's never been one before, so it's not really a "re"-union, especially since my generation keeps growing and growing due to divorces and remarriages - I've acquired a bunch of non-blood-related cousins, for example. Also it's not really a "re"-union when there are several people here I'd never met before :) We're here for the week, then most of my family are returning home and I will meet magickalpony in Sorrento and spend another week on the mainland, and return on May 3rd. If you're my friend on Facebook, follow my profile for occasional photos and videos this week from Capri (I don't know how much net access I'll have next week). If not, I'll post a bunch of links to the photos here on LJ after I get home. In the meantime, here's the video I posted last night, my cablecar ride from the ferry port below Capri town up the cliffs to the town: (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008
7:19 am	Obama has already beaten Clinton, so why isn't it over? Returns are coming in on election night; the race has been close and polls show either candidate could win. Now, with 83% of precincts reporting, candidate A is leading 53% to 47% over B. It's an insurmountable lead, and the race is called for candidate A. That's where the Democratic primaries are: Of the 3253 pledged delegates available, about 83% have already been voted on, and Obama is leading Clinton by about 53% to 47%. We can call the race now. Or, look at it another way: There are 566 pledged delegates left from states that haven't voted yet. To catch up with Obama, Clinton needs to win about 65% of those, which means she needs to average about 65% of the vote in the remaining states. She doesn't win by that margin pretty much anywhere. So far, Clinton has received more than 60% of the vote in exactly one state: Arkansas. Her second-best result was 58% in Rhode Island. Her other home state, New York, gave her 57%. If every state from now on goes as well for Clinton as her home state of New York did, then she will get about 322 of the remaining pledged delegates, and Obama will get about 244, for a net gain of about 78... leaving Obama still ahead by about 80-90 pledged delegates! Remember, that's what will happen if Clinton gets a New York level win in every state. Not gonna happen. She might do that well in Pennsylvania, but the next-biggest state to come is North Carolina. We also have states like Oregon and Indiana coming. One way to look at it is this: For every state where Clinton gets less than 65% of the vote from now on, she's losing ground! Imagine you're a runner 100 feet from the finish line, and there's someone ahead of you who's only 50 feet from the line. If, in the next second, you run 30 feet while the leader only runs 25, now you're 70 feet from the finish and the leader is 25 feet from it. Sure, you just ran a little faster, but your chances of overtaking the leader before the finish have gotten even smaller. In other words, even if Clinton wins Pennsylvania 57-43, that actually puts her further away from catching up to Obama, not closer. She'll do considerably worse than that in most remaining states. It's over: Obama will go to the convention with more pledged delegates, and will be the Democratic nominee for President. ( What about the Superdelegates? ) ( What about Michigan and Florida? ) ( Is there any way Clinton can win? ) ( Should Clinton drop out? ) ( Why you should still vote, if your state primary is coming up. ) In other words, if you want a Democratic president, you should vote for Obama, regardless of which candidate you prefer. States that still have primaries coming up: April 22: Pennsylvania - 158 delegates May 3: Guam - 4 delegates May 6: Indiana - 72 delegates May 6: North Carolina - 115 delegates May 13: West Virginia - 28 delegates May 20: Kentucky - 51 delegates May 20: Oregon - 52 delegates June 1: Puerto Rico - 55 delegates June 3: Montana - 16 delegates June 3: South Dakota - 15 delegates [ table of delegate counts by state ] Update: I also posted this on Daily Kos and on MyDD. If you have accounts in either place, please recommend? (91 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, April 13th, 2008
11:28 pm	Tango Tango Tango I saw seventorches in person for the first time in this decade, and soon afterwards, she was married. The wedding ceremony lived up to the promise set by their fabulous invitation: the ceremony was a silent movie, with a young couple saving the world from an evil train conductor. Instead of talking, they had accomplices with overhead projectors and transparencies featuring silent-movie style dialogue. Until they defeated the evildoer, tied him to the train tracks, and got all their voices back. A few days before the wedding, I declined to join tornadogrrrl for a tango class, but tango didn't get the message, and chased me all the way to Eugene: the wedding was held at the Tango Center and there was a tango class after the ceremony, which I got to watch from mere feet away. On my drive to the Oregon Coast Aquarium the following day, I was listening to KLCC and heard a song in Spanish in a very familiar voice... and the way her voice moved from sound to sound... Sonia did a song in Spanish? Yes, sure enough, it was a track from Sonia/disappear fear's new 4-language album Tango. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, March 28th, 2008
9:45 pm	Bye, oily princeling mzrowan's boy cat, who I have lived with for nearly two years, died unexpectedly on Thursday afternoon. The afternoon before, when he visited my room, he seemed mosly normal, and he ate some food and drank some water. That might've been the last time he ate anything. The following morning he was really sick and by the time the vet arrived he was just sitting on the closet floor shivering a little, unable to walk. Almost as soon as the vet saw him, he said "he's in really bad shape". He weighed him (under 8 pounds, down from around 12), smelled his breath, took a blood sample, and diagnosed him with kidney failure. Until he said "this is a dying cat" I thought it would be okay :/ I went to my room to Google directions to Angell Memorial animal hospital, and by the time I got back to the kitchen, he was dead. He's been known by many names over his lifetime, among them: You, That Other One, Testicules, Oily, Rosencrantz, Prince, black fluffball, and the Princeling ("You" and "That Other One" due to the fact that he looked so much like his sister than Rowan took a while to learn to tell them apart). Not very smart, but fortunately he left the brain cell for his sister (they shared it). His favorite pastimes were bellyrubs, sitting on paper, licking plastic bags, and liberating pasta. Now that I think of it, I haven't seen him licking plastic bags for a long time, maybe that was a warning sign. Cats are so subtle about their ailments. (29 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, March 20th, 2008
11:48 pm	LJ protest I'm doing the thing, of not posting or commenting tomorrow. http://naamah-darling.livejournal.com/315019.html http://beckyzoole.livejournal.com/395310.html From my point of view, it's a way to call attention to this, get more blogs and possibly non-blog news to mention it. I'm pretty convinced now that SUP doesn't get LiveJournal and will slowly unravel it by attrition if they hold on to it for too long. I hope calling more attention to this will increase the likelihood that they decide it's more trouble than it's worth to them, and sell it to someone else who will understand it better and make more of it than they will. P.S. I obviously have no trouble with the idea that they want to make money. I have three paid accounts and have paid for a lot of other people's accounts over the years. But mismanaging it and getting into an adversarial relationship with much of the userbase won't make them the money they hope it will. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 19th, 2008
1:55 pm	yam biscuits Yesterday at zalice's parents, I was called on to make a quick bread, and remembered the time magickalpony made biscuits with mushed yams and how tasty they were. She wasn't online, so I improvised, and these came out even better! I started with this recipe off the net, modified a bit for ingredients at hand and the addition of yams: 1 cup bleached white flour 1 cup whole flour 1 1/4 T baking powder 1 T sugar some salt (about a teaspoon?) 4 T butter 3/4 cup buttermilk 2/5 of a large yam (could be 2/3 of a small yam) 1. Peel yam, cut into medium blocks about an inch thick. Put in a pot of water and boil, let it simmer... 2. Mix flours, sugar, salt, baking powder in a bowl. 3. Cut 4T butter from stick into smaller portions (about 10) and scatter over the flour mixture. Mix around a little bit, cut up the butter pieces some more. 4. ... get the yam pieces out of the water, let them steam dry for a moment, drop into the bowl. Mix and mash - the hot yam will soften the butter. Mix in the buttermilk. 5. Spread the gooey mixture on a very floured surface, pat out to about 1/2 inch thick, and cut/separate off roundish pieces about 1 index finger in diameter onto buttered/greased cookie sheet. 6. Bake 11 minutes, take out and let cool on cookie sheet for 1-2 minutes. That's what I did, though when I try this again I may modify it. The amount of yam I put in made the final mixture very gooey and sticky, so I increased the amount of flower and baking powder from the original recipe, but next time I might try with a bit less buttermilk or yam or a bit more flour. Still, despite not looking or feeling like dough, it baked into wonderful biscuits, and the one I took home with me and at just now was still soft and moist. Edit: As in the original recipe, the oven should be 450 F. Also, I tried a less gooey version with satyrgrl, with whole milk instead of buttermilk, a smaller piece of yam, and slightly more flour. It was pretty good, but the original version was better; I'm not sure if milk vs. buttermilk, or doughy vs. gooey, made the bigger difference. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 11th, 2008
9:56 am	Wanna live here? mzrowan plans to sell this house, and I want to stay here. My favorite option is to have a friend buy the place from her and keep me as a renter, though I'm also considering buying it, and could buy it half & half with someone. A block and a half from the Harvest coop (and summer farmers market) in Central Square, very short walk from the red line, the Middle East & TTs, Toscis, the Dance Complex, and a host of other Central Square stuff. Large kitchen, two large bedrooms and one small one on the first floor, plus half a basement finished with a second bathroom and three rooms (one of which could be a bedroom). Might you want to buy it and have me stay here, or know anyone else who would? (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, March 3rd, 2008
2:20 pm	Congress may still grant amnesty for illegal spying The ACLU writes, "Under pressure from the White House, the US Senate recently passed a terrible bill that rubber-stamped the President's warrantless spying on innocent Americans. Worse yet, it lets telecoms who went along with the illegal program off the hook. Now the Bush fear factory has turned its attention to the House, which is under increasing pressure to cave in to these scare tactics and pass the Senate bill." ... We need you to call your Representative today via the Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121. If you have time, please also call Speaker Pelosi (202-225-0100) and Majority Leader Hoyer (202-225-4131). Tell them to: Stand strong against fear-mongering and the terrible Senate bill Reject immunity for phone companies Reject warrantless spying Telecom companies are defending themselves in court against charges that they broke the law when they collaborated with the government's illegal domestic spying. If Congress excuses the phone companies, the court cases will abruptly end and we'll probably never know the details of Bush's illegal spying. Here's what has happened since I posted about this a month ago: All of Russ Feingold's amendments were defeated in the Senate. Chris Dodd realized the Senate was hopeless, and that the House was the best hope, so he dropped his filibuster and the "Protect America Act" extension passed the Senate with amnesty for telecom companies in the bill. House Democratic leaders tried to pass a PAA extension without amnesty for telecoms, but couldn't get enough support, so they let the PAA expire without passing any extension. Bush said he'd veto the bill if it didn't have amnesy for telecom companies. The Protect America Act expired, and Republicans started running scary TV ads full of lies (we don't really need the PAA, and good riddance to it). Now, the House is considering caving in and passing a PAA extension with amnesty for telecom companies, just like the Senate already did. If you don't want this to happen, please call your Representative ASAP? P.S. Please repost this. P.P.S. If this post appears twice, it's because post-by-email is having trouble. I'll delete the duplicates; this is the real post. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 19th, 2008
10:10 am	Snow Squid Dartmouth College holds a Winter Carnival weekend every year, and one of their traditions is a giant snow sculpture on the green in the middle of Hanover. Each year's winter carnival has a theme; this year it was "20,000 Leagues Under the Snow". I took a few pictures of the giant snow squid attacking the Nautilus of snow emerging from the middle of the green. Now I must send this to Bruce Schneier :) (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
1:17 pm	the right to consensual sex Texas is one of four states that still has a law banning the sale of sex toys.* Or was. This week the 5th Circuit US Court of Appeals struck it down. "This case assesses the constitutionality of a Texas statute making it a crime to promote or sell sexual devices. The district court upheld the statute's constitutionality [...] We reverse the judgment and hold that the statute has provisions that violate the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution." * Actually, the law is much worse than that. It bans promotion or possession with intent to promote sex toys, and then defines: "Promote" means to manufacture, issue, sell, give, provide, lend, mail, deliver, transfer, transmit, publish, distribute, circulate, disseminate, present, exhibit, or advertise, or to offer or agree to do the same. They rely heavily on two of the most important sex rights cases the Supreme Court has decided: Lawrence v. Texas (2003), which legalized consensual private sex, including sodomy and BDSM and gay sex and group sex - anything consenting adults choose to do without intending for it to be public (IOW, a peeping tom doesn't make it "not private"). Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), which legalized the pill, and the sale & use of contraceptives in general. They used Lawrence to evaluate the consitutional right in question, and the state's supposed interest in suppressing it, and concluded that "the asserted governmental interests for the law do not meet the applicable constitutional standard announced in Lawrence v. Texas." "Because of Lawrence, the issue before us is whether the Texas statute impermissibly burdens the individual's substantive due process right to engage in private intimate conduct of his or her choosing." Several times in the ruling, they use the phrase "an insufficient justification for the statute after Lawrence" when referring to each of Texas' justifications for the law, implying that before Lawrence, courts might have given weight to those supposed justifications, but that's all settled now and those justifications (like "morality") no longer fly in suppressing a basic right. They used Griswold to establish that a ban on public commercial transactions can violate individuals' private rights, and that those who wish to engage in those commercial transactions do have standing to go to court on behalf of their potential customers. In the landmark 1965 case of Griswold v. Connecticut, which invalidated a ban on the use of contraceptives, the Court recognized that the plaintiff pharmacists "have standing to raise the constitutional rights of the married people with whom they had a professional relationship." ... Griswold, where the Court held that restricting commercial transactions unconstitutionally burdened the exercise of individual rights. So, Because of Griswold, "the statute must be scrutinized for impermissible burdens on the constitutional rights of those who wish to use sexual devices" - rather than merely the constitutional rights of those who wish to sell them. Both Griswold and Lawrence were decided based on the Constitutional right to "privacy", a right which is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution but which the Supreme Court has held is implied. It's based on the 9th amendment, which states that just because a right isn't specifically mentioned should never be held to mean that the right does not exist or is not protected, and the 14th Amendment's "due process" clause, which extends most of the Bill of Rights to state governments. We hear a lot about the right to privacy as being associated with the right to end a pregnancy, but it's not just abortion, it's also about the right to have sex. Without a Constitutional right to privacy, we wouldn't have the legal right to: Buy, sell, or use condoms or the pill Buy, sell, or use vibrators or dildos Have oral sex ... and state laws could criminalize any of those things if they chose to. Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Virginia were the only remaining states with laws against selling sex toys. Several other states had such laws but they were struck down by their own state courts. Since Mississippi is also in the 5th Circuit, this decision striking down Texas' probably also invalidates the Mississippi law, leaving just Alabama and Virginia. Thanks to ratatosk for pointing out this decision. (37 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, February 11th, 2008
12:27 am	oatmeal cookies If you went to Warm Foods and liked the oatmeal cookies magickalpony and I made, she posted the recipe which she partly improvized as we made them. Unfortunately the last batch in the blue bowl was underbaked, so if you tried them late you missed the good ones. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, February 4th, 2008
4:49 pm	Obama Tomorrow (Tuesday) is election day in 24 states, including: Massachusetts, California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Minnesota, Colorado, Arizona, Kansas, Arkansas, and other states where few of my readers live :) I'm not gonna have a chance today to write a real post about why I endorse Obama, so here are some links to explain or illustrate why I support Obama. xkcd's endorsement of Obama Obama's speech on religion and politics to a religious audience. Long but excellent, watch the whole thing! Because it works! - Obama's conflict-resolution approach Former president of Chicago's NOW chapter on why she switched to Obama (short video) Goodbye to All That: Why Obama Matters (Andrew Sullivan) Endorsements from the Boston Globe and from Blue Mass Group The Choice - why progressives should choose Obama over Clinton Edit: Lawrence Lessig (EFF board member, founder of Creative Commons, Stanford Law professor) endorses Obama in this 20min video Geek, Tech, Open Government Obama plans to have a Tech czar to "ensure government officials hold open meetings, broadcast live webcasts of those meetings, and use blogging software, wikis and open comments to communicate policies with Americans". Obama supports Net Neutrality - and understands why. xkcd's endorsement of Obama War Obama's early opposition to the Iraq war Obama's 2002 speech on Iraq Get Your War On artist David Rees endorses Obama for his opposition to cluster bombs in civilian areas. Rule of Law Obama's views on presidential power & the Constitution Lawyers for Guantanamo detainees endorse Obama en masse Judge him by his laws - "Consider a bill into which Obama clearly put his heart and soul. The problem he wanted to address was that too many confessions, rather than being voluntary, were coerced -- by beating the daylights out of the accused. Obama proposed requiring that interrogations and confessions be videotaped." (16 Comments |Comment on this)
11:56 am	Amnesty for telephone companies' illegal spying [ Note: If you already know about this horrible telecom amnesty thing, you can skip ahead. Just pleace call both of your Senators today ] Early in his first term, the Bush administration asked the major telecom companies to let the government have all of their traffic about people's phone calls, foreign or American, without warrants or judges being involved. One, Qwest, said no, that would be illegal. All the others, apparently, said yes. We found out about this in 2005 & 2006. AT&T, Verizon, etc., are in court to defend their illegal actions. They argue they're not responsible, the government is. This court case may be the only way we'll find out what exactly the Bush government was doing, what information they were collecting on people, and what legal debates they had about it. Afraid of legal discovery and subpeonas and facing the issues in open court, the Bush administration is trying to get Congress to pass a law giving the telecom companies amnesty for their illegal spying. If Congress declares by fiat that the phone companies aren't responsible, the court has no role, and not only do AT&T and Verizon and the rest of them get off the hook for their willingness to build a police state, but the Bushies get to keep their secrets about it from us. Minimal timeline/summary (leaving out some things): FISA, the law that allows the government to legally conduct surveillance of foreign communications under the oversight of judges but in secret, had a bug that needed to be fixed. Summer 2007: Congress passed the "Protect America Act" hastily, with little debate, under bullying from Bush. It fixed FISA's bug, but also temporarily legalized warrantless spying. Without knowing what exactly the warrantless spying program was, Congress said it was okay (although Constitutionally it probably is still illegal, that hasn't gone through the courts). But because it was so hasty, they made it only last six months... until now. December 2007: With last summer's legislation expiring soon, Congress picks up a new bill to extend it for longer. This bill adds something that wasn't in the original: amnesty for the telcos. Senator Chris Dodd leads a filibuster. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, seeing the Senate's session about to end with other important legislation to get to, and no time to deal with a filibuster, withdraws the bill, to be picked up again after the new year. Temporary victory! January 2007: FISA amendments extension with telecom amensty reintroduced. Senator Feingold introduces a series of amendments to get rid of telecom amnesty, add judicial oversight back, and fix several other serious problems. Last week: A vote got called on the bill as-is, with no amendments. Senator Dodd threatens a filibuster. Cloture vote, needing 60 votes to break the filibuster, fails. What this means: all those amendments can now be debated and voted on before the whole bill comes to a vote again. Temporary victory! Today: The Senate is taking up the amendments, with Feingold/Dodd (the one to get rid of telecom amnesty) possibly voted on today. Two opponents of telecom amnesty, Obama and Clinton, can't afford to spend the day in the Senate because Super Tuesday is tomorrow and they need to campaign. Ouch. Do you like having a system of checks and balances? Where the government has to obey the law, and where police have to show a judge they have a reason to spy on you? Please please please call both of your Senators and Majority Leader Harry Reid today! Their offices are taking calls, and the only reason we won in December and last week is that the volume of calls turned a few Senators' votes. Due to an agreement between Reid and the Republicans, most of Russ Feingold's amendments only need 50 votes to pass - they agreed not to filibuster them in exchange for taking a few off the table. We can get 50 votes but it's not a sure thing. P.S. Oh yeah, Super Tuesday is tomorrow. I hope you vote for Obama if you can, and that he wins. Maybe I'll have time to write another post about that. But too few people are posting about the FISA bill. [Edit: Here's a list of the amendments Feingold has proposed. They're all good. Dodd-Feingold is the one to get rid of amnesty for phone companies. Feingold-Tester-Webb is the one that puts judges back in the wiretapping process. Ask your Senators to vote for all of Feingold's amendments. ] [Edit: Republicans are using some annoying stalling tactics, pushing these amendments to later this week - which may be a good thing. ] (18 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, January 31st, 2008
1:40 pm	Never forget: January 31st, 2007 One year ago today, at about this time, Boston was in a panic: For those of you not familiar with Aqua Teen Hunger Force , the Mooninites are a race of video-game aliens who attempt, albeit inefectually, to wreak mayhem on the world. (They are completely awesome, though, because Schooly D does their theme song.) The joke is that the Mooninites always fail to do any real harm. Except, that is, in Boston. In the wake of the attack of the Mooninites, I wrote What Does Random Panic Protect Us From? We're not facing a serious threat. We have a process, which I call "Random Panic", that doesn't protect us from it anyway. The protection is actually a bigger problem than the supposed threat. ... please read the whole post. Please pass it on. (16 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 29th, 2008
10:44 am	Obama endorsements Yesterday, Barack Obama was endorsed by Ted Kennedy (video), and ... by xkcd. I wonder which one will end up mattering more? (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 8th, 2008
2:06 am	2008 presidential candidates A New Hampshire friend asked me what I thought of all of the candidates, tonight. With the NH primary tomorrow, I wrote this almost stream-of-consciousness ramble about all of the ones she listed, plus a few she didn't list that I know were running. Just in case you want to see it, or pass it along to others, I'm also posting it here. It's not my best writing, or as well-argued or fleshed out as I could do, but it's late and the NH primary is tomorrow. This is more or less my opinion of each candidate. ( Read more... ) (24 Comments |Comment on this)