December 6, 2007 archive

How to Win Any Local Political Campaign Online

buzz-it!

Admittedly I did not apply the philosophy below to my own local elections this year.  But this is the method I followed to help a Progressive Democrat win in Western New York.  The candidate had been posting some things on a site I ran and I noticed his campaign site needed help.

1. Make sure your coding is correct so that the search engines will be able to index your site properly.  Your site should be ready to go before you announce, if not make it a priority ASAP as media articles referring to you will sometimes include links to your site and you don’t want it to look like a mess. Yes a blog is a must.  An events calendar is also very helpful as people feel welcome to join in the fun right away.

2. Post photos of the candidate interacting with people at local events.  At the same time begin advertising the site in every conceivable location, if the site is broken down into issues register those sections of the site with indexes that are related to the topic, register news feeds with aggregate sites and search for local engines and link lists.

Four at Four

Some news and open thread.

  1. The New York Times reports Senate Panel Passes Bill to Limit Greenhouse Gases. “The Environment and Public Works Committee split largely along party lines on the bill, which calls for a roughly 70 percent cut from 2005 levels by 2050 in the production of carbon dioxide and other climate-altering pollutants. The legislation would limit emissions for virtually all sectors of the economy, but would allow swapping of pollution permits among carbon emitters.”

  2. In another potentially positive sign, the NY Times adds the EPA is prodded to require cuts in airliner emissions. After the Supreme Court told the Environmental Protection Agency they “had the authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from automobiles”, the attorneys general of California, Connecticut, New Jersey, and New Mexico, the city of New York, and “several environmental groups filed petitions with the EPA Wednesday in an effort to force cuts in emissions of heat-trapping gases from airliners, a rapidly growing source.”

  3. According to The Hill, Sen. Leahy postpones contempt vote. “Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) on Thursday postponed a vote on contempt resolutions against former White House adviser Karl Rove and Chief of Staff Josh Bolten after Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) objected to language in the measures. Committee rules allow for a one-week delay, so the vote will likely take place next Thursday. Committee approval of the resolution would trigger a full Senate vote on the resolutions early next year.”

  4. The haters win. The Hill reports Hate-crimes provision stripped from defense bill. “House and Senate votes on the 2008 defense authorization bill could be held as early as next week after conferees agreed Thursday to strip from the bill a controversial provision extending hate-crimes protections to gays… President Bush had threatened to veto the bill if it included the hate-crimes language, and conferees from both sides of the aisle and both chambers had warned that the Senate provision would jeopardize the passage of the entire defense authorization bill, which includes policies designed to help wounded soldiers and increase military pay.”

Time to put impeachment back on the table

Joe Biden said it recently about bombing Iran and impeachment. Hell, some loudmouth said it back in February as well. But we can’t afford to wait for the smoking gun about whether we will bomb Iran to be the mushroom cloud over Iran, right?

Noted terrorist loving communist far left radicals such as Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan are calling for hearings into who knew what and when. And frankly, we know that there was highly questionable behavior with respect to the “when”.

 

Down with Surrendercrats and the Bourgeoise Bloggers who enable them!

This diary is going to consist primarily of partisan invective and vitriolic ad-hominem attacks.

It is intended to be divisive of the enemies and unifying for the base of the Democratic Party.

By “Surrendercrats” I mean Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Harry Reid, Dianne Feinstein, Chuck Schumer, and to some extent, John Edwards.

I’m deliberately leaving a bit of wiggle room for John Edwards because of the top three candidates whom are all uniformly disappointing, John Edwards is not as bad as Obama, whom himself is not as bad as Hillary.

I won’t vote for Hillary, but I probably would vote for Obama because he doesn’t have two terms of insulting the base of his party under his belt like the Clintons.

Ok, those are the “Surrendercrats”.

Kucinich stands in stark contrast to the “Surrendercrats”.

I sure like the way “Surrendercrats” sounds, BTW. I also call them “Republicrats” and “Bush-boot-licker-crats” as well.

Kucinich is the opposite of a “Surrendercrat”. Kucinich raps John Edwards for his vote for the Iraq War, the Patriot Treason Act. Kucinich raps Obama for voting to fund the Iraq occupation without any accountability from Bush. Kucinich raps Clinton for being the war-pimping skag and Bush-lover that she is.

Kucinich stands head and shoulders above his rivals. He is a DEMOCRAT. They are Surrendercrats.

Now, about the Bourgeoise Bloggers, Impeachment Obstructors, Sell-Outs, and enablers of the Surrendercrats…

These people tend to be “A-list” bloggers with over 100,000 visits per day. These bloggers have become shills for the Surrendercrats. Markos Moulitsas Zuniga is a fine example of a Bourgeoise Blogger of the Blogger Aristocracy.

Markos is and always has been against impeachment. Why is that? Could it be related to the fact that he was once a registered Republican who worked for Henry Hyde?

Since when do real Democrats welcome Republicans to lead us by the nose against our better judgment? Markos is a sellout.

Also, Atrios is a wuss who only made the faintest noise in favor of impeachment.

There are other big bloggers who are also very weak and undeserving of their traffic.

They are our opposition now and they will remain our opposition after 2008. They have shown that they are sunshine patriots who are willing to sell out the constitution in favor of a little ad-revenue and higher traffic to their blog.

I’ll finish this screed with praise for Kucinich, long may he reign.

I beseech all readers of this diary to do the only ethical thing and to support Kucinich as he works to impeach Bush, Cheney, and humiliate the Surrendercrats who enable Bush and Cheney, and to make the Bourgeoise Bloggers who enable the Surrendercrats eat crow as they so richly deserve.

Dharma Claus

Dharma claus 2000 t

Please make this go viral – pass it on!

Click on the image to get a copy!

Pony Party… Puppy Edition

So I was thinking about Puddin’ Hed, the smartest dog who ever owned me, this morning and this was the only net ready photo I could find…

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Which of course started Puddin’ Hed’s favorite song in my head:

While looking I found some other puppy pics along the way…

Pooka…

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Muad’Dib & Oblio…

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Which led me to thinking about Puppy Power!

And puppy bellies…

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And puppy curiosity…

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And the goofiest grey ever…

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Aaaaargh! Too many puppies….

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Climate Change: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

With the world we know in just a little bit of trouble, thanks to global warming/climate change and other human-caused environmental disasters, three different countries are pursuing three very different approaches to dealing with it.

In Germany, Spiegel Online reports:

The cabinet of German Chancellor Angela Merkel approved a package of emissions reduction policies representing a 2008 commitment of €3.3 billion ($4.8 billion) on Wednesday. Cabinet members say it is among the most ambitious national initiatives of its kind in the world.

“The government is taking a big step forward to achieve its climate protection goals,” government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm said, according to the Associated Press. “Germany will maintain its leadership role.”

The plan breaks down into 14 new laws and regulations, each designed to encourage businesses to conserve energy or expand Germany’s production of renewable energy.

Germany’s goals are to cut their greenhouse emissions by 40% by 2020, which would put it in compliance with the the overall European Union’s target, and to increase the share of its energy consumption that comes from renewable sources from a current 14% to 25-30%, by the same date.

Some other countries, however, are backing off previous promises.

(more)

Big Al in Bali

Al asks:


Over the next nine days, I would like you to help me get people from across the country to sign our message to the global community. We can demonstrate that the American people understand the immediacy of the climate crisis and want to work with the nations of the world to solve it.

http://www.algore.com/

Kucinich on Randi Rhodes Show plus more! w/poll

It’s already been a good week for Dennis!

Pony Party…bein’ cheesy

….because life really does seem to be ‘limp[ing] along at sub-sonic speeds’…

Docudharma Times Thursday Dec. 6

This is an Open Thread: Please Come Inside

Headlines for Thursday December 7:As N.H. Primary Nears, Clinton Clings to Narrow : Details in Military Notes Led to Shift on Iran, U.S. Says: U.S. military brass in Iraq resist quick drawdown : Japan’s Bloggers: Humble Giants of the Web

USA

Top U.S. military brass in Iraq resist quick drawdown

Commanders fear recent gains would be lost. The Pentagon, meanwhile, turns up pressure to bring more troops home.

By Peter Spiegel and Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

December 6, 2007

BAGHDAD — The U.S. military’s internal debate over how fast to reduce its force in Iraq has intensified in recent weeks as commanders in Baghdad resist suggestions from Pentagon officials for a quicker drawdown.

Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the day-to-day military commander in Iraq, said he was worried that significant improvements in security conditions would sway policymakers to move too quickly to pull out troops next year.

“The most important thing to me is we cannot lose what we have gained,” Odierno said in an interview last week with The Times after he toured Nahrawan, a predominantly Shiite city of about 100,000 northeast of Baghdad with a market that is now showing signs of life. “We won’t do that.”

Details in Military Notes Led to Shift on Iran, U.S. Says

WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 – American intelligence agencies reversed their view about the status of Iran’s nuclear weapons program after they obtained notes last summer from the deliberations of Iranian military officials involved in the weapons development program, senior intelligence and government officials said on Wednesday.

The notes included conversations and deliberations in which some of the military officials complained bitterly about what they termed a decision by their superiors in late 2003 to shut down a complex engineering effort to design nuclear weapons, including a warhead that could fit atop Iranian missiles.

Muse in the Morning

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Muse in the Morning

The muses are ancient.  The inspirations for our stories were said to be born from them.  Muses of song and dance, or poetry and prose, of comedy and tragedy, of the inward and the outward.  In one version they are Calliope, Euterpe and Terpsichore, Erato and Clio, Thalia and Melpomene, Polyhymnia and Urania.

It has also been traditional to name a tenth muse.  Plato declared Sappho to be the tenth muse, the muse of women poets.  Others have been suggested throughout the centuries.  I don’t have a name for one, but I do think there should be a muse for the graphical arts.  And maybe there should be many more.

Please join us inside to celebrate our various muses…

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