Re: Andy Ostroy

I laughed really hard when I read this, "Make no mistake: Former Vice President Al Gore will be our next president."

This is sort of a random question, but does anyone watch Rocketboom:

http://www.rocketboom.com/vlog/

Or Amanda Congdon on abc?

http://abcnews.go.com/Amanda/

Who is this JT?

Look here for photos of the real JT-ATL:

http://www.adonkeyandanelephantwalkintoabar.com/Smitty/photogallery/index.cfm?mediaid=125&Fuseaction=Viewphoto

RE: Top Donors
How come, when our side dominates the top 10, we still have trouble beating the GOP in the money race??? I was kind of surprised at this list.

Is Gore trying the Newt non-campaign? Who knows? And with so many good candidates on both sides (well, 'good' is loosely defined for the GOP), who cares? If you want to be a candidate, have the cojones to say so. So far, Gore says no, and I believe him.

The Laura Bush story is old news...although I wish the media would make her cry over it. Yes, I know that is making the wife pay for the sins of the husband, but I'm over Laura Bush.

Never heard of Rocketboom or Amanda COngdon.

I would hope that the last time Barnes ran for Gov. would have taught us that we money matters but it all comes down to a bit of money and a whole lotta message

Well I hate rain on the Gore parade, but did everyone see the energy foot print story about his house in TN? It's the sort of this a good PR person would have been out a head of, not waiting to respond the day after the Oscars.. I'm just saying..

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/275734,CST-NWS-gore28.article

It has been out there. Not surprised it was zombie-fied and brought back the day after. Gore's camp responded pretty swiftly. Personally I view the carbon credit thing as a bit of a cop out. But anyone who tries to use this obvious political tactic to try to obscure the science needs a swift kick in their personal global warming region.

As usual, the idiots at PP are trotting out the "hypocrite" label for Gore. Go have some fun with them. I am :)

jac, i think it comes down to the fact that they have a deeper bench. our big hitters are mostly unions who serve as aggregators for multiple smaller (very small) donors who otherwise wouldn't give to the political process.

meanwhile, they probably have lots of companies/small businesses that are in the $1 million range giving to them. they may not show up in the top 100, but there is only 1 afscme while there may be hundreds of those concerns.

finally, when it comes to the small donor base, they have an edge - they are the party of tax cuts and less government which just so happens to appeal to the "average" joe who makes $75k or more and can afford to give $50/month or some other similar amount.

many of our supporters, and people who would benefit from democrats getting elected currently have a negative savings rate as it is. it's not that their donations should be $5 instead of $50, it's that they don't even have the $5.

that's how it goes. thankfully our very broad message appeals to more people so that helps us compete despite the fundraising gap.

I hate this, not so much for Gore, but for environmentalists in general. It's the old argument that because a person doesn't have the carbon footprint of a gnat, they have no moral authority to advocate for environmental protection. It's complete BS. We all do as much as we can, however we can.

Everyone could always do more and better, but the point is to try. I would argue that if all the minds and all the behaviors that Gore has changed with his documentary and slideshow were factored into the mix, he would indeed have the carbon footprint of a gnat.

I heard Darryl Hannah on Hannity yesterday. Talk about walking the walk. She has a one bedroom, one bath house, uses a gray water system and drives a biodesiel SUV. She was so damned pure Hannipy had no room to maneuver. Made me chuckle.

What's a gray water system? I'm intrigued.

You can add Ed Begley Jr to the list griftdrift. He has a show on HGTV. It's really about how his wife copes living with him, but he is walking the walk bigtime. I just feel all earthy crunchy watching him.

Greywater is basically water inbetween fresh and sewage. Imagine the water in your washing machine after a load. Some people are putting in systems to recycle this type of water. The requirements are usually pretty stringent as you can imagine there would be the possibility of health hazards.

By the way, Crooks and Liars has Olbermann debunking the Gore is big fat energy hog meme.

A gray water system uses the water drained from sinks and showers for purposes that don't require a pristine water source, e.g. to flush the toilet.

In some countries I've read that it's usual to have a sink right above the commode, draining into the tank. Good reminder to wash one's hands - not that anyone here needs to be reminded, I'm sure. :)

How dare Justing Timberlake tread on the sacred grounds of JT! Justin is DTM.

Long live the JT

In Georgia, we are damned if we do (turn on the lights) -- even if we use CFL's and other energy savings appliances and technologies.

Our power is among the cheapest and environmentally unfriendly, and the vast majority of our heating/cooling costs are summer cooling (using electricity generated from coal).

You could be doing a great job of making your house eco-friendly here and still score higher than someone in Minnesota who leaves the lights on while they are at work.

I hope ya'll will get this out to the Atlanta public, especially those Dems who jumped ship on Jimmy Carter.

Via the Lawrence of Cyberia blog--

We enthusiastically chose to become a colonial society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel to the occupied territories, engaging in theft and finding justification for all these activities. Passionately desiring to keep the occupied territories, we developed two judicial systems: one - progressive, liberal - in Israel; and the other - cruel, injurious - in the occupied territories. In effect, we established an apartheid regime in the occupied territories immediately following their capture. That oppressive regime exists to this day.

-- Michael Ben-Yair (Israeli's Attorney-General 1993-1996), The War's Seventh Day; Ha'aretz, 3 March 2002.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=136433

Just so everyone knows, there is a site metro political report.

It is for Repubs. I am creating a similar site for Dems (if one does not exist already).

The concept is that every Democratic/left event will be published on it coupled with an email list.

Please help me out with suggestions and tips.

Your lovable,
musical elitist.

Mel...well said. The diversions from the main point are frustrating...I wish someone could tell me how to keep from getting diverted down these little garden paths.

And there is this for those of you who think that Pres. Gore is too one-dimensional to be a viable candidate.

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/10/5/14301/6133

Yo. Musical elitist. What your url?

This old music elitist would like to know.

GA elected Dem's, my God, how can you not run with this? Sonny Do's OWN appointee to the state environmental board dumps chicken sludge into creeks?
You can't make this stuff up. How can you not get every Mom in the angry about this? Make a goddamn stand once in a while...

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/printedition/2007/02/28/meshfine0228a.html

http://www.atlantamagazine.com/blogs/entry.php?id=836

Here's another no-brainer from GA Dem's. Earl Ehrhart, a truly despicable human being, goes after fellow repub John Oxendine for disagreeing with him on pay day loans. Ehrhart is a vindicative bully and has been for years (with a miserable record, like trying to influence Cobb Co. re-districting that affected his own kids).

Is there one Dem in this state willing to call him out and take him on?

http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2007/02/28/0301edpayday.html

The rawest political moments in the payday tale came when GOP Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine refused to follow the script and endorse the bill. Oxendine attacked the bill for the cancer that it is, angering Rep. Earl Ehrhart (R-Powder Springs).

Oxendine discovered quickly that the GOP leadership would not tolerate anyone breaking ranks. House leaders moved swiftly to limit damage and Oxendine's influence. First, the bill was changed so that oversight of the payday industry was yanked out of Oxendine's control and given over to the Department of Banking and Finance. Then, Ehrhart introduced a bill that would strip Oxendine of his authority to license and oversee finance companies that lend $3,000 or less under the Georgia Industrial Loan Act.

If anyone wonders why less than half of the 4.4 million registered voters in Georgia bothered to vote in the last election, the payday loan bill provides the answer: Unless you are a big money contributor, Georgia legislators are not interested in you.

Wow, that Earl Ehrhart is one nasty SOB. On top of the sins already noted, who can forget his "Angry Dads and 2nd Wives" legislation to reduce child support payments out of spite for his ex wife? When you legislate for personal vengeance on a regular basis (or even at all), it is time for you to do. What is wrong with the people in Powder Springs who keep re-electing this nutjob?

With the Gore thing - isn't this part of what a lot of us greens have been trying to say for years? We don't want to go back to prehistory (the sane ones of us anyone), we just want to stop doing stupid and destructive things. We want to close loops rather than run open strip mines all the time. We want to invest in the technology that should have been here twenty years ago already. And we want to produce what we consume so that we don't get bent over by criminal petrol rings like the Bush/bin Laden/Saud families.

Part of Gore's message should be "I never wanted people to live in caves - I want them to take a few moments to see where they can improve."

Conservation is an important slice, but there are many ways to our goal:

http://www.princeton.edu/~cmi/resources/stabwedge.htm

That's a pretty good tag line odinseye. May I use it when I whomp on the science ignoring cretins?