We got hit hard by some spammers today, and while deleting some of this garbage, I deleted a few comments. Actually, one of them was a long one of my own. The other two were Meredith’s on Dennis’ “Values Voter” post and a guy named Dan on the FEMA post below. Please repost if you [...]

From the comments section of a recent post about FEMA woes, we find these comments.
First, Lena Wichterich says:
I AM SOOOO ANGRY!!!! just like everyone else, my parents and I have lost everything and it’s been 8 mths and we still feel like it happened yesterday! Of course I got my measily ten thousand for my [...]

I ran accross a great column by George Will, that busts the myth of the so-called “values voter.” Actually, it’s not that he busts the myth, it’s that he believes we all vote our values. Here are some choice quotes:
An aggressively annoying new phrase in America’s political lexicon is “values voters.” It is [...]

But if moderates abandon the GOP and conservatives abandon the GOP, then who will turn out the lights?

…and there was much rejoicing…yeah!
So yes, our not-so humble little site hit a completely arbitrary (yet round) mark sometime yesterday. I don’t know when, but I have to say that I think it’s extremely cool since we’re not even a year into it yet. Yeah for us!
More importantly, the center blogosphere is growing and getting [...]

Frankly, I understand Mexico’s concerns, but the idea that somebody would sue the US for enforcing their borders is pretty out there. True, the people who are trying to come into our country illegally will have to find more dangerous avenues to break our law. But that’s grounds for suing the US?
More the AP:
“If there [...]

In this world, especially where power is concerned, the brilliant sanity of an idea almost always seems to be in inverse proportion to its likelihood of ever being adopted, implemented, realized. And so, on sighting such an idea, the heart always soars, and then sinks. If only . . . but, no.
In [...]

I’ll give you a hint. It has something to do with our energy crisis.
Jeremy Dibbell has the answer.

This slipped past me last week, but Cory Booker won the Newark mayorial race in an out and out landslide.
So why is Booker such a big deal? Well, anybody who’s seen the Academy Award-nominated documentary Street Fight already knows how Booker’s challenger in the 2002 mayorial contest, Democratic mayor Sharpe James, played extremely dirty [...]

(h/t: Reasonable Prudence)

Faith eludes a father who wants to do right by his daughter.

The New York Times had an interesting article this Sunday about the CIA. It suggests that by responding to the huge demand for immediate intelligence, we as a nation have lost the means to generate strategic intelligence — the kind of stuff that gives a clear picture of the war we use tactical intelligence to [...]

An unwitting interview. Refreshing.

After having spent part of the weekend with my hardcore environmentalist brother, who showed us many digital slides of the hay bale houses he thinks we all should be living in, I’ve been thinking. About environment, politics, and boys who cry wolf.
He does good work, in “sustainable” living, land preservation, anti-sprawl efforts. He does a [...]

Reader_I-Am, who needs no introduction here, has an interesting suggestion:

Bring on term-of-office reform: One six (or even five?)-year-term presidential term (anyone wanting a second bite at the apple can sit it out for six to twelve years).
And don’t give me that lame-duck nonsense; I don’t buy it anymore as a trump card. Why the [...]

What irritates me about leftwingers’ debating style: they perceive all opponents as either brainwashed sheep or evil manipulators. They always want to “educate� rather than actually debate.
What irritates me about rightwingers’ debating style: they categorically reject nuance, boiling down every issue into an either/or dichotomy where their side is righteous and their opponent’s side is [...]

They Know When You’re Awake…
Ok…maybe not that much, but they may know who ABC reporters Brian Ross and Richard Esposito are calling. Why? Because they want to find out the sources for the secret CIA prisons leak.
More from ABC:
A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers [...]

Which means, of course, not making it ideal. That’s only in our dreams:
[Right away,] we need a top of the ticket. Yes, grassroots is better, but there is no time and no possibility of it happening. A top-down party will not achieve profound social change, probably ever. A top-down party, like the degenerate duopoly, [...]

Yes, but is the NSA program illegal?
That’s not the question many are asking right now, but David Gartenstein-Ross is.
From National Review:
FISA distinguishes between “electronic surveillance,� which collects the substantive content of electronic communications, and “pen registers,� which collect only the addressing information of electronic communications. Although the language of FISA is somewhat convoluted, information [...]

President Al Gore?
Personally, I thought this was pretty damn funny, especially since it was so tongue in cheek.
All cars run on trash? Heh.