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Imagine, for a moment if California’s legislators and Governor hadn’t bought in to the mania that suggested holding our primary in February, with 20 other big states, and instead kept it in June like God intended.
Imagine the mania that’d be the Democratic Primary right now as California’s voters would literally decide between Clinton and Obama. Imagine the shenanigans, the tricks, the events, the huge voter turnout, and the like. Imagine how fun/infuriating/exciting the season would be. California’s issues would be front and center, and we’d have candidates criss-crossing the state talking to voters – instead of just using LA and SF as a big ATM machine for junk mail in other states’ contests.
Instead we have Maximum Leader Daly’s penny-candy shenanigans and a handful of state legislative primaries. Oh and some lame-ass ballot measures.
Big whoop.

So it appears that at the same hotel where the DNC Rules Committee was making decisions accompanied by the collective primal screams of bitter Clinton supporters, upset that the DNC was upholding rules, um, Hillary Clinton fully approved of, a young couple was having their wedding reception in the same hotel.
They took it all in stride and actually kinda had fun with it. Now, I’d sooner have my wedding reception in Hell than anywhere near a crowd of insane politicos of any stripe. But what caught my eye about this story was the fact that the young couple went to their hotel room, to be greeted by like, a ton of free food and champagne – courtesy of Howard Dean and the DNC, who appreciated their not calling the Riot Squad on the whole kit and kaboodle.
Sometimes Democrats can be classy, even when some aren’t. Progressives, take notes and learn – being nice has its advantages over dogmatic speeches and the Middle Finger Salute sometimes!

In the last few days before the Big Election, anyone like me who was foolish enough to put their email address on their voter registration form is getting all sorts of nonsense in their email in-box. I’d mentioned before this is not such a brilliant idea.
Interestingly enough, however, Big Evil Lennar corporation, which is spending a pile of cash to get that silly Prop. G passed, uses a company that voluntarily complies with the CAN SPAM law even though it doesn’t apply to political communications.
On the other side, I’m getting tons of spam from Cindy Sheehan (!), the No on G/Yes on F campaign, and the Chris Daly group trying to take over the DCCC, and it doesn’t even try to be CAN SPAM compliant. (And God help you if you dare say something to these paragons of virtue – they’re liable to rip your head off for daring to suggest they’re anything less than angels.)
Funny, that.

No on 98 = Linux World

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In these final days before the election, I’m sure all kinds of shenanigan-bombs are going to be dropped, esp. in the District 3 Senate race.

Meanwhile, I , a regular voter, have seen virtually NOTHING in my mailbox, aside from these pieces…funny thing, I couldn’t tell the No on 98 piece and the Linux World pieces from each other, and when I went to pick up one, I had the other and didn’t realize it at first.

It’s really funny how California moved their primary way back to February, to be more “relevant” and oddly enough, if they’d just kept it in June we’d be seeing Hillary and Barry all over the state and turnout would be huge.

Instead….meh.

Carry on.

email survey

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Today I received the same voter survey (from “votersurvey.org” oddly enough) asking me a few questions on the June election. It’s not entirely clear if this is an actual survey, or a push poll (doesn’t seem like it) or why I’d get the same questions 3 times in a week…

Found on StumbleUpon, images of Our President in ads all around the world.
This is what people think of us around the world. Sure we can take the macho think tank “screw ’em all” attitude, but in an era of a declining dollar, recession and the like, we may wannab worried about the rest of ’em saying “screw you” back.

More than a few people I know have asked me just what is this “DCCC” they keep getting mailers, emails, and the like as we approach the primary. Sifting through the pros and cons of so many candidates is not easy, especially if it’s not clear why it is a) someone is running for it b) why someone is running for it when the job does not pay and c) why they have to run and get elected by the voters at all.
The Democratic County Central Committee is the official party organization for the County of San Francisco. (For the record, there is also a Republican County Central Committee as well, which also has many candidates running and sending out mail – there’s just not as many Rs in SF as there are D’s, that’s all). Now, this in and of itself is somewhat interesting to those in politics, but it can make a difference, particularly with registering new voters and getting them out to vote. In addition to the elected members from both Assembly districts, Democratic elected officeholders also have a seat on the committee as well.
The DCCC can make endorsements, which are the Official Word of the Democratic Party in SF, and can raise money to distribute mail, literature, register voters, and so on. It is not a very glamorous job, nor is it one that the public gets to see. But having seen both totally moronic and totally effective local parties, and the impact they can have, I can safely say having one that at least gets people to vote and makes sure to register new voters as people move here is the least they can do.
This year has an unusual wrinkle, in that several elected officials (termed out Sups. Peskin and McGoldrick, and current Sup. Chris Daly) are running for a job that is usually held by party activists, and not professional politicians. Likewise, several people hoping to serve on the Board of Supervisors after this fall’s elections (Emily Drennen, Eric Mar, David Campos, David Chiu, Eric Quezada) are running this year. David Chiu is unique in that he currently serves the unexpired term of the late Sue Bierman, and is running as an incumbent.
In addition to these “celebrity” candidates, there are incumbent DCCC members running, as well as new people who want to get involved. The argument made by Daly and company is that electing people like him and his cohorts who a) have name ID and b) can raise money and have “experience” can help make the DCCC more powerful, and more (ahem) progressive.
The counter-argument is that while such points may be the case, the DCCC has traditionally been the place for the citizen activist to get their first chance to get involved in politics, and perhaps run for office later on. Having professional politicians pushes them to the back of the bus, so to speak, and may mean for a DCCC that is more like the Board of Supervisors.
Which view is right? I don’t know, I can see both sides, frankly. However, I would wonder what would be the impact of having a significant number of currently serving board members (with all the work that entails) also serving concurrently as members of the DCCC.
We’ll see what happens when voters have their say in June. Until then, read read read all that mail and be sure to vote!

It’s Friday, and it’s the big day for the weirdest remake I’ve heard of, Speed Racer. To celebrate the movie a few links…first from the always awesome io9.com sci fi blog we have this clip of the original, non-dubbed opening of Speed Racer…

and of course the SNL parody with George Clooney:

The LA Times has this really interesting set of pictures, with comments from the set designers, too that’s worth checking out.
Coming up soon: Disinfo Rehab Mail for the Primary Election, Decoding the DCCC Elections, and more. Don’t forget to check out my other site at Adama for President as well!
UPDATE Somehow, the good citizens at Hulu.com managed to discover this humble blog, and alerted me to the fact you can watch dubbed version of Old School Speed Racer online!
The fact that someone, anyone even reads this blog, much less made the effort to alert me to this, well it just made what was a crappy Friday much better. (oh and while I watched this as a kid I forgot the southern-style songsters who did the original theme song…)

And to continue the fun, here’s the version of Sponge’s tribute to the OG Speed Racer theme in English, mashed up with snippets from the new movie..

This is just sad sad news – the Wendy’s chain has finally been bought out….by Arby’s.
Sigh. I suppose dogfood burgers at Wendy’s are coming up soon enough….maybe they can start selling that noxious “Horsey Sauce” with it too….

See, this is the thing. (“What is the thing” you ask?)
But here it is. Sen. Obama calls BS on President Clinton’s fellating of a so-called “Free Trade” deal with Colombia, Sen. Hillary’s top advisor “Fake Quits” after it is revealed he was pimping the deal, and all they have left is to attack Barry with some BS nonsense he didn’t say!
Wonderful. And this is better than the lying regime of Bush/Cheney HOW?
So just in case the HillarBill’s got you all worked up, here’s what Barry said ,verbatim. I think he calls BS fairly well in that the talkers can keep talkin’ but they can’t deny that the rest of us are getting the shaft. And it’s not like Syria, Colombia, or these other countries are at least doing us the favor of buying us dinner before “the act.” And hey, at least he’s not having his 12th CD caucus in frakking Hillsborough at the school named after a robber baron!
C’mon, Colombia and C’mon Hillary. Your buddy Mark Penn earns enough to buy multiple houses in Georgetown and piss on his neighbors. Where’s my spy camera and where is my steak dinner, gents? If you’re gonna continue to frak with my economy, at least buy me a good dinner. With drinks. Al Gore at least has a little honor, why can’t you copy THAT from the 90s instead of the sleazy lies Bill built his post-presidential biz on ?