There are serious issues at stake in this election, and serious differences between the candidates. And we will argue about them, as we should. But it should remain an argument among friends; each of us struggling to hear our conscience, and heed its demands; each of us, despite our differences, united in our great cause, and respectful of the goodness in each other.
DAILYKOS is a featured Blog for these talking points.
According to Teagan Goddard's Political Political World, The Straight Talk Express is looking to deposit spam and other crap in your mailboxes and on websites throughout the virtual world. Specifically, we wants people to spread talking points all over the damned place:
"McCain Offers Prizes for Spam Comments
Sen. John McCain's campaign is urging supporters to spam blogs and forums with official talking points, according to the Washington Post. If you do a good job, you can even win prizes.
"That, in essence, is the McCain campaign's pitch to supporters to join its new online effort, one that combines the features of 'AstroTurf' campaigning with the sort of customer-loyalty programs offered by airlines, hotel chains, restaurants and the occasional daily newspaper."
"People who sign up for McCain's program receive reward points each time they place a favorable comment on one of the listed Web sites (subject to verification by McCain's webmasters). The points can be traded for prizes, such as books autographed by McCain, preferred seating at campaign events, even a ride with the candidate on his bus, known as the Straight Talk Express.""
As with many of you, the slowing economy and high energy prices have really taken a toll on me financially. I've donated money to Democratic candidates for various offices in the past and planned to do so this year as well. When I looked at the finances, however, I realized that there really wasn't any extra money hanging around. I basically had to choose between gas in my car and food for my family or donating to a political cause and it's clear which one I had to choose. So, to earn some extra cash to be able to donate to Democratic candidates, not necessarily Barack Obama, but also the many great Senate candidates, I began looking for an easy, quick way to make some extra dollars here and there.
Illinois should go to a military strongman form of government.
Instead of the pretense of representative democracy, we should submit to one of those charismatic, totalitarian dictators with the Captain Kangaroo get-up who makes people disappear.
After all, isn't that what the "Chicago 9" are doing?
For some reason, Part One of this very mini-series resulted in quite a rise in interest. Some clarification is in order.
Salon.com had published a piece by Lynn Harris, entitled, "The Rainbow Party Is Over," http://www.salon.com/... which I referenced in Part One on July 13th, 2008.
I had not given the details or even an explanation of Harris’ title, and, out of delicacy, nor does she except to provide a link which obfuscates the subject even more, except to say, "rainbow parties are group oral sex parties in which each girl wears a different shade of lipstick, and each guy tries to emerge sporting every one of the various colors." (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/30/fashion/thursdaystyles/30rainbow.html)
That 3 year old article assumes the reader can figure the location of the various lipstick stains, but dismisses it all as "suburban legend" and cites a 4 year old study that found that only 12 % of teen girls, 13-17, (now 50 %), had engaged in oral sex and a minuscule number had attended oral sex parties of any sort.
As the world breathlessly awaits his next film, W, I took a peek at Oliver Stone’s bio in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Seems he’s led an interesting life, to say the least: Jewish stockbroker father, Catholic mother, raised Episcopalean, convert to Buddhism; attended exclusive schools; parents divorced; as a teen he discovered Dad was, umm, "doing" a number of the neighborhood ladies; Dad escorted him to a prostitute while he was just a lad, perhaps to prep young Ollie to follow in his philandering path; Dad paved his way to various jobs; he dropped out of Yale (twice), served eighteen months in VietNam (in combat) where he earned a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star; graduated NYU; prolific, controversial, and successful film director who often blatantly and willfully fabricated...
After propping up and backing up Nouri al-Maliki for years, the Bush administration was handed its worst nightmare when the Iraqi Prime Minister called for a timetable for troop withdrawals.
How did they respond? The White House fell back on its own old tricks, calling Maliki "misinformed" on Iraq and that he does not understand what it's like to see his own people die.
I've contributed through ActBlue in 2006 and 2008 to several campaigns. I want to see my contribution used for ads, for mailers to voters, for pizzas for phone bankers. I don't want to see it used for postage to me.
To those who send me newsletters, mailers, solicitations - you're wasting your time, my time, and both our money. They go into the garbage. Unopened. As I've told those who call, I do all my contributing online. And I don't open the emails from the campaigns, either. Those emails make me less likely, not more likely, to contribute. They make me think "hmm, maybe I shouldn't contribute to any new candidates, because I'll just get more mail and more email."
Are there others out there who feel the same? Take the poll! Candidates and staffers reading DKos, this is something you can do for the community that is trying to support you; fix this problem. I have a suggestion after the jump..
His head explodes. He blows his stack. He breathes fire. Just another day in the life of everyone's favorite short-fused Presidential candidate!!
(If you've seen it before, sorry. If you haven't, enjoy and pass it on!!)
In the course of events described in this diary last week, I did something I would otherwise not do: I sent an Email to the Obama campaign from my primary business Email address. I felt that I had to: I was forwarding the controversial E-mail described in the diary.
They didn't bother to respond... so imagine my surprise when I got an Unsolicited Commercial Email -- that's right, SPAM -- from the Obama campaign, asking if I had "Visited the Obama store lately?"
I loved this idea, and thanks to wikipedia, Google Image search, and a Canon camera, we have
Older Than Spam: Visual Edition
When I started, I hoped he would be older than landmark institutions, such as Social Security, but alas, Social Security beat him onto the planet by a year. Comments welcome!
I'm a bit unhappy about one of the Democratic insurgents that has gotten good press here. Joe Garcia, who's running against the awful Mario Diaz-Balart, is spamming me with push polls. I don't live in Florida or have any connection to his district. But he seems to have contracted with Versatil Marketing of Hollywood, FL to spam the world with a "push poll". I've gotten at least three copies.
As a rule, I never do business with spammers. Even though the you-CAN-spam Act makes it legal under some circumstances (rules not even followed by Versatil's mailings from "yourloaded4u.com"), it's evil. I sometimes give the benefit of the doubt to somebody whose name might be used without his consent by a spammer. But unless Garcia proves that this push poll is just a plot to make him look like a filthy spammer, I'll assume he is.
I've been reading Kos daily for over 2 years now and have really enjoyed the community here. In all that time, though, I've never written a diary, as I really just enjoyed seeing everyone's takes on different things here. But today I finally feel like I have something I want to post.
In literature, a red herring is a narrative element intended to distract the reader from a more important event in the plot, usually a twist ending.
The term "red herring" originates from the tradition whereby young hunting dogs in Britain were trained to follow a scent with the use of a "red" (salted and smoked) herring (see kipper). This pungent fish would be dragged across a trail until the puppy learned to follow the scent. Later, when the dog was being trained to follow the faint odor of a fox or a badger, the trainer would drag a red herring (which has a much stronger odor) across the animal's trail at right angles. The dog would eventually learn to follow the original scent rather than the stronger scent.
(wikipedia)
Ever since Hillary lost 11 contests in a row, the states of Florida and Michigan have become an almost daily topic for her, a former president, even a former first daughter. Aping their points were Mark Penn, Howie Wolfson (almost daily, in the mornings), McCauliffe, Davis, Gurin, and countless others, pretending to wear the white hat, demanding equality for "Everyone", and somehow claiming that imposing rules that everyone agreed to was just plain unfair.
