zabouti's blog
The Free Market Hurts NC Children and Farmers
Submitted by zabouti on Sat, 08/25/2007 - 11:25am.Free market fundamentalists "know" that government is always more expensive and less efficient than private enterprise, right?
Yet today's News and Observer tells us what happened when the Defense Department outsourced its "farm-to-school" program in North Carolina to a private company.
Journalism has just changed forever
Submitted by zabouti on Mon, 07/23/2007 - 9:46pm.The YouTube/CNN debate was the best ever.
It put to rest forever the claim that we need professional journalists to conduct presidential debates.
The Political Chicken-Egg Problem
Submitted by zabouti on Sat, 06/02/2007 - 7:19am.In recent years, many fellow Democrats have opposed certain Democratic Congress members for not voting liberally enough. I have replied that the best way to get Democrats to move to the left is to give them a solid majority in Congress and solid wins in their districts.
Campaign Finance Reform
Submitted by zabouti on Tue, 12/26/2006 - 1:53pm.Edited by SD - I removed ge's street addy.
I thought I had an example for Anglico, where the News & Observer had done something right, but, dang it! Anglico is right again!
Here's the letter I tried to send to them:
Dear Editor:
As a person who worries that campaign finance reform will stifle political speech, I was alarmed by Bradley A Smith's column in this morning's News & Observer (Stifled Speech). Mr Smith reported that the Federal Election Commission had recently fined MoveOn.org and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth for too overtly supporting political candidates but failing to register "as political action committees, which would have limited their ability to receive large donations".
Smith lauds the ability of ordinary people to make ourselves heard through organizations such as MoveOn.org and the Swift Boaters, and I agree 100% that we should be free to express our views through such organizations.
IMing with the Decider
Submitted by zabouti on Sat, 10/07/2006 - 11:25am.You've probably got to pay to read it, but Maureen Dowd's column today, Death by Instant Message, is hilarious.
Here's an excerpt:
Decider: wait! I thought I was ur BFF ...
sexylibrarian: hon, sorry to interrupt, but i think denny and rummy should BOTH go ... they’re off the heez. women are hating on Foley and Iraq and it could ruin your admin
Rumstud74: ur a bigger pain than condi, laura ... why dont you go rd a book? read wdwrd’s book ... you sure helped him write it, litl ms tattletale
Decider: haha
sexylibrarian: george!
I think that political humor is often much more effective than facts, "plans", outrage, attacks, so I'm so glad to see lots of Saturday Morning Funnies out there!
Damning new evidence about Diebold voting machines
Submitted by zabouti on Mon, 07/31/2006 - 10:17pm.The point of this post at slashdot is that a Diebold AccuVote TS touchscreen voting machine can easily be made to boot from different software even after the machine has been "certified" and "verified".
-- ge
Why I still subscribe to two newspapers
Submitted by zabouti on Mon, 07/31/2006 - 7:15pm.On Saturday, I read an interesting story on the front page of the News & Observer It was entitled Border watch heightens crossing peril and it told a story stating that it is now much harder for illegal immigrants to cross the Mexico-US border into the US.
Although the article sounded authentic, it just felt "funny", like a Bush administration plant. So I sent email to Barbara Barrett, the author of the article, and cc'd Melanie Sill, the N&O's Executive editor and senior vice president (I met Melanie many years ago and respect her highly).
Jerry Meek on what the NCDP is doing for county parties
Submitted by zabouti on Sun, 07/30/2006 - 6:56pm.Jerry Meek, head of the North Carolina Democratic Party, called me this afternoon to discuss my response to his post on his BlueNC blog. We've corresponded and talked several times in the past, and I think he's doing an outstanding job.
In my response I had asked another blogger to substantiate his claim that
The state party has a wealth of resources, despite what some may tell you....
I had read that comment as accusing the NCDP of having lots of money and not sharing it, and Jerry wanted to confirm that the state party does indeed have a wealth of resources that they want to share with county parties.
The President CANNOT Leak a Secret
Submitted by zabouti on Fri, 04/07/2006 - 6:27pm.It turns out that neither Bush or Cheney can leak classified secrets. Here's why: Scott McClellan, press secretary, explained today that Bush and Cheney declassified secrets just before revealing them to selected journalists. So they're not secrets, you see, and therefore they can't be what we uninformed people call "leaks."
Now we know why Cheney has been claiming the power to unilaterally and personally declassify anything they want.
