LeKnott

Donate to ACORN in the name of this Republican Voter Suppression Specialist

Today on Democracy Now :

With Election Day approaching, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), finds itself in the cross hairs. Over the past year and a half, ACORN has helped 1.3 million mostly young, mostly poor people register to vote. Then, last week, ACORN was thrust into the national spotlight when the McCain campaign accused it of engaging in fraudulent voter registration on a massive scale. We host a debate between ACORN chief organizer Bertha Lewis and Cleta Mitchell, a Republican attorney specializing in election law.

After hearing this podcast, I was compelled to donate to ACORN, the single largest non profit for middle to low income citizens in the country, specifically to help them with their efforts to register largely disenfranchised voters across the United States. 

Even better, when donating to ACORN here you can specify the donation in someone's name.  I donated in the name of Cleta Mitchell, the loud mouth republican thug that was so abrasive and classically singing from the Republican song book with regard to voter suppression to win elections that it made me want to throttle her. 

So on the ACORN donation form, you can enter her name, and you can even use the form to automatically email her to tell her that you just donated to ACORN in her name.  Her email address is cmitchell@foley.com.

Proposition 2's The Way

Winning Mark has the pleasure and privilege of working with the Humane Society of the United States on the Prop. 2 YES campaign in California.  We are helping with communications to HSUS supporters statewide, urging them to get out and help with the campaign.

This November 4, Californians should vote YES! on Prop 2 – a modest measure that stops cruel and inhumane treatment of animals, ending the practice of cramming farm animals into cages so small the animals can't even turn around, lie down or extend their limbs.

The campaign has a great Web aspect to it, with many easy ways that you can help spread the message and promote this important cause.  Please visit www.yesonprop2.com to learn more.

An Economic Coup?

Article by Laura Flanders: From The Nation

A threatened elite seeks to consolidate control and tighten its grip on a nation's resources ... 

You could be forgiven for thinking I'm describing Bolivia, where conflict between landowners and backers of the democratically elected president Evo Morales claimed 30 lives so far this month, but I'm not. Reading the economic plan proposed by the Bush Administration for Wal St., I'm struck by the thought that what we're going through right here might not be an election season, but rather a coup.

The oligarchs in Bolivia used bullets and batons to undermine democracy. Here the weapons look like bailouts and blank checks, but the end goal is the same: Put the economy in a vice and you've tied the hands of whomever's in office. You, the voter, may not vote for the team that promises -- as the GOP service-cutters have promised -- to shrink the Treasury to a puddle that can be drowned in a bathtub. But no matter, your candidate gets the keys to the Treasury and - presto, the Treasury is bare.

Read the full story here.

Taking Our Government Back

By Barack Obama
June 21, 2007

Over one hundred years ago, around the turn of the last century, the Industrial Revolution was beginning to take hold of America, creating unimaginable wealth in sprawling metropolises all across the country.

As factories multiplied and profits grew, the winnings of the new economy became more and more concentrated in the hands of a few robber barons, railroad tycoons and oil magnates.

It was known as the Gilded Age, and it was made possible by a government that played along. From the politicians in Washington to the big city machines, a vast system of payoffs and patronage, scandal and corruption kept power in the hands of the few while the workers who streamed into the new factories found it harder and harder to earn a decent wage or work in a safe environment or get a day off once in awhile.

Eventually, leaders committed to reform began to speak out all across America, demanding a new kind of politics that would give government back to the people.

One was the young governor of the state of New York.

In just his first year, he had already begun to antagonize the state's political machine by attacking its system of favors and corporate giveaways. He also signed a workers' compensation bill, and fired a high-level official for taking money from the very industry he was supposed to be regulating.

None of this reform sat too well with New York's powerful party boss, who finally plotted to get rid of the governor by making sure he was nominated for the Vice Presidency that year. What no one could have expected is that soon after the election, when President William McKinley was assassinated, the greatest fears of all the entrenched interests came true when that former governor became President of the United States.

His name, of course, was Teddy Roosevelt. And during his presidency, he went on to bust trusts, break up monopolies, and do his best to give the American people a shot at the dream once more.

Measure 37 Donors Looking at $700 Million Pay Out if They Can Defeat Measure 49

Voters in the November 2007 Oregon election have a chance to correct some serious problems caused by Meausure 37, which passed in 2004.  As a result of Measure 37, developers and timber companies have demanded about $15 billion (yes, you read that right - that's BILLION, with a "B") in compensation from taxpayers.

Of the $15 Billion in Measure 37 development claims, almost $700 million of them are from donors to the Measure 37 campaign.  That's right, the very people who funded Measure 37 are now filing massive compensation demands under the Measure.

Read more about the $15 billion demanded from taxpayers to pay for Measure 37 development claims.

Technorati Tags: Measure 49, Measure 37

NewsCorp Bid to Purchase The Wall Street Journal From Dow Jones & Co. Exposes Outrageous Effects

"Rupert Murdoch has always wanted to own The Wall Street Journal. But the Bancroft family, which owns a controlling interest in the newspaper's parent, Dow Jones & Co., does not want Murdoch to take control."

Check out this crazy interview where New Yorker columnist Ken Auletta offers his insights in a conversation with Steve Inskeep.  From the article on NPR:

How big is Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.?
News Corp. is a $70 billion company. It's probably the fourth-largest media company in the world. It began as a small newspaper company in Australia, under Rupert Murdoch's father. He expanded that dramatically and it's now the largest owner of newspapers in the world, with about 170 newspapers.

And now he wants a controlling share in a gigantic newspaper that's been owned by the same family for decades?
He's always wanted to own The Wall Street Journal. He told me that years ago. And when I was doing a piece two years ago on Dow Jones, and the family that owns, or controls, Dow Jones, they made it clear to me that the last person in the world they wanted to own that paper was Rupert Murdoch.                                                  
Why?
What they said to me was that they worry that his politics would spill not just on to the editorial page, which is close to his views, but on to the news pages. And they didn't want politics to bleed into the news pages.

Read the full story on NPR

Net Nuetrality - Save the Internet

This is a great mashup video spot about Net nuetrality.  I was turned onto this by Hans.  Check out recent news items regarding Net Nuetrality.  Read an in-depth article By Edward Felton on the Nuts and Bolts of Net Neutrality (pdf).

About Network Neutrality
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(also "net neutrality," and, more rarely, "internet neutrality") is a principle of computer networks design. It is variously defined in a number of similar/related ways:

1. The satisfaction of all network application needs fairly. Any particular internet host, protocol or application should not receive preferential treatment, except to ensure correct operation of the network or protocol. A carrier's network that disfavors certain websites, protocols like Voip or multimedia services, for example, would be non-neutral.
2. Alternately, permitting the networking of all non-harmful devices, with open access carriage of packets.
3. Regulations that would attempt to legislate carriers to enforce neutrality on their networks. Anti-network neutrality regulations would enable a tiered internet.

     

Federal Court Restores Roadless Rule

A federal district court today ordered reinstatement of the  roadless rule to protect almost 50 million acres of wild national forests and grasslands from road building, logging, and development.  

The Court found that in repealing the roadless rule last year, new regulations failed to comply with basic legal requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act [wiki] and the Endangered Species Act [wiki]: "this Court concludes that the Forest Service failed adequately to consider the environmental and species impacts when it [repealed the Roadless Rule] in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act."

The Court continued: "to conclude that a regulation that effects a major change in the way roadless areas in national forests are regulated nationwide from the prior regulation that it replaces does not constitute a repeal with potentially significant environmental effects would ignore reality...

 

Check out "The Fight Over the Roadless Rule: Bad Policy Left and Right " from the Cato Institute.
Search this in "Google News"

Microsoft vs. Google vs. ??

"Call it corporate politics or a co-incidence, the fact is when the biggest corporate giants fight, their strokes are beautiful and sinful as the best paintings or the best composition ever heard.."

A great article (though rife with grammatical anomalies) by Puneet Mehrotra, a web strategist at www.cyberzest.com.

The master strategist - the Microsoft move

Google, Google and yet more Google. For the last couple of months it seemed as the web was only about Google. A Google fan I am fan, but even I was almost getting sick writing about the same company acquiring or launching a new application week after week. Google Calendar, Google Finance, Google acquiring the online word processor. It seemed the web belonged to Google.  Some neo-pundits even predicted Microsoft had it days counted and soon everything in the civilization would be Google.  Well folks, the giant has finally woken. The biggest company in the world Microsoft has made its move. And what a master strategy it is. But first what's behind the moves.

The thought machinery in Microsoft and Google

An electronic civilization it is. Trust me it is.  I just moved to a new apartment and two days without the internet and now as I type this on my notebook it seems from the ice-age back to the future.  The Microsofts and Googles of the world are the corporations that govern our existence in this electronic age.  Google offers mostly everything for free.  The free attraction and freedom is gone. Call it the subliminal effect of brands in the e-age. The bottom line, the ultimate weapon in this e-age is the thought machinery.

The Standford - Google connection

The "thought network". The Standford University Network and the Google connection is well known.  In fact, each Google application is absolutely superb. Right from design to development to usability, Google applications are absolute stunners. . This simply isn't possible without the right brains at work. Why haven't the other companies, some bigger giants than Google managed to get even half the kudos? The answer is the thought network Google has. Absolutely awesome.

Cut Down On Junk Direct Mail

Here is a great way to save trees, send a message and spread the word about junk postal (snail) mail.

Our friend Jen Maiser at Life Begins at Thirty has been collecting and saving all the catalogs she receives in the mail for some time. Recently she hauled out the pile of catalogs and contacted the retailers. From her blog:

Just write a note like the one below, and be sure to include all information from the mailing label and a viable email address I used one of my "junk" addresses so that I can correspond with them but don't get bothered by any possible spam.

The note:

Please remove me from your catalog list. I am interested in your company, but am trying to cut down on the amount of mail that I receive. Please help me save trees! I will continue to read your website.

Thank you.

Check out Life Begins at Thirty