I was pleased to see that all but two of the Dem candidates participated in the debate sponsored by the GLBT community. The single strongest segment of the right wing's base consists of the group Michael Moore characterized in his book by the same name, "Stupid White Men." These "men" are the most homophobic in America and also, the least likely to vote left of Republican, which would include Libertarian (fiscal conservative social moderate) Democratic or Green. These are the Neanderthals who still don't get it that Bush is bad for America, bad for our troops, bad for the planet. It took guts for the Democratic presidential candidates to appear in the forum. My kudos to them for having the balls to do it-- Hillary too.
BTW, I've made friends with right winger guys, and I have kin who are very right wing. So, let's be clear. I still love my kin and like my friends. But yo (notice my Philly /Rocky Balboa-ism) guys, if you're still supporting Bush, you've been drinking too much of the kool-aid Limbaugh, Hannity, and the other dittoheads who get paid big bucks to keep you from thinking rationally have been serving up.
BBTW (like a PPS) I can't imagine the republican candidates having the balls to participate in a debate at a GLBT sponsored forum. The moderators actually asked uncomfortable questions that made some of the candidates squirm. I give the Dems extra credit for being good sports about it and participating even though they knew it was higher risk. Nope, the Republican candidates will never do it. Hell, they're even afraid to do something like CNN's youtube. How do you say it? "Gutless wimps? Chickenhawks?" Barf!!
Tucker on Morning Joe... and Fishing.
I sent off a missive to MSNBC's morning Joe this morning, complaining that I couldn't take Tucker Carlson so early in the morning (6:40 AM, and I noticed the time because Mika Brzezinski, quick becoming one of my favorite anchors, commented to Carlson on his comment on castration-- "not at 6:40.") But he just mentioned that he's a fisherman. I have to relent. He can't be all bad. If you fish, you have to appreciate nature, at least a little bit... unless you're one of those high testosterone 200+ horsepower bass boat triple X chromosome types. But that takes us back to "stupid white men" doesn't it? I guess all things are relative. Carlson has a brain and some sense of reality, compared to, say, Bill --the self inflated idiot-- O'Reilly. Then again, Bill Burton, of the Obama campaign just told Carlson, "Joe Scarborough is going to come back and think you broke his morning show." And, in my email complaining to MSNBC about putting Carlson on so early in the morning, I did confess that I do watch him in the PM, usually, when I get so disgusted with Lou Dobbs. Of course, when I get disgusted with Carlson, I switch to ... gag... FOX News. That rarely lasts more than a few minutes. Yuk. But it's helpful to track the enemy's latest messages.
McCain falls Below Obama in Iowa
Yep. One poll allowed Republicans to list anyone, and more REPUBLICANS picked Obama over McCain. On the right, they are feeling sorry for McCain. I don't. He sold his soul for Bush and his support for the Iraq war and Bush's immigration policy. On the Iraq war, he deserves to lose. On the immigration issue, he failed to see what a strong issue that is for Republicans. Actually, if a third party candidate emerges, I am very confident that the biggest issue will be immigration. There are people on the left and the right who will be drawn to that issue like no other.
Putting Hillary's Lead Into Perspective
About this time in 2003, Howard Dean's campaign was building momentum. He'd won the moven.org online vote (and OpEdNews.com had successfully predicted that win, using alexa.com data, before that was commonly done) and Joe Trippi's internet strategy was creating the Deaniac phenomenon, that in the Fall of 2003 had Dean on the front covers of major newsweeklies, with a big lead. Then Dean said he'd clean up media consolidation. The mainstream media went ballistic, doing what they could to destroy him, and they were successful.
Now, I think Hillary Clinton is the candidate the right wing has been dreaming of running against for years. They've been doing opposition research since the 1990's, building an arsenal of quotes, attack concepts, images. They are drooling for a Hillary candidacy. That's why they love her. Now, about those polls. Polling is all about the questions and who you ask. I know. I've commissioned several Zogby polls, and it's all in how you phrase the questions, the sequencing of the questions and the questions you leave out. For example, you don't see matchups of, say, Kucinich or Gravel or Richardson against Giuliani or Romney.
Anyway, my point in bringing up Howard Dean is to make it clear that a strong lead this early in the primary game is exciting, great grist for the media mill, but ANYTHING can and will happen. Kerry was far, far behind at this point in the game in 2003. Anyone can still win. And it's still not too late for more candidates to come into the race-- Al Gore, everybody's not yet in the race favorite, and my first choice for a new entry-- Oprah Winfrey.
Trust the MSM to Try to Influence the Democratic Primary
Bottom line, the MSM can and will intentionally play a major role in influencing the democratic primaries. I assume that the ones they hit the hardest and characterize as over-emotional, angry, inexperienced or clumsy will be the ones they think are most likely to WIN in the big horserace. They give warm and fuzzy coverage to the one or ones they think will lose. A mea culpa-- I created a tag category-- "call me paranoid" to cover stuff like this. I really do think that the MSM intentionally does this. Now, that makes me consistent with a new PEW poll, which I'll discuss next.
Okay, Don't trust the MSM
A new Pew Poll reports that people who get their news primarily on the internet think the least of the MSM. That means YOU. And the higher your education, the lower your opinion of the MSM. Then again, Fox viewers and Republicans also have a low opinion of the "liberal media." The way I see it, the Fox Viewers have problems, dealing with, as Stephen Colbert described it, truthiness. Or as it's been said, "Reality's a b*tch."
About Reality being a b*tch
Another reality is that OpEdNews.com MUST raise funds to keep going from YOU, our readers. We need your contributions. I don't like asking for financial support, but that's our situation. We are reader supported. As I write this, all the ads we are currently running are give-aways (in house or supporting consortium news author Robert Parry's latest book. He's a great asset to the progressive community.) So we are depending upon our readers to keep us going. We've had about five contributions this month. Our contributions average about $30, ranging from $5 to $500. so, to cover the $3300 a month we need to pay for webmaster, hosting, overhead, utilities, etc. (note that does not leave much, if anything for me. I allot under $400 a month pay for me-- about $1.00-$1.25 an hour.)
So... August is a tough month for fundraising. People are away on vacation. (Vacation? What's that?) When you assume that someone else is going to make the contributions we need, well... if everyone does that, then no-one supports us. I guess the same applies for activism too. Maybe it's that 20-80 rule-- that twenty percent of people do eighty percent of the water carrying. Please consider this request as an opportunity to become part of the twenty percent who DO something. Supporting OpEdNEws is doing something. So, please, Donate HERE, NOW.
Now, if you're on a fixed, limited income, I'm not talking to you. I understand you can't give. There are lots of other ways to make a difference. For OpEdNews, you can click on digg icons, tell others about us, comment on articles, submit quicklinks for articles you think our readers will value and enjoy and be an active, participating part of the community.
About Commenting, Stats and Tag Clouds and doing it better than anyone else
People have been asking us for stats. Writers want to know how many reads of their articles, rankings, etc.. Eventually, we'll get to it, but our goal is to do our technology better than what's out there.
Our tag clouds, next to each article, diary and quicklink, include control panels. I call it a tag cloud control panel. I did a google search on it the other day, "tag cloud control panel" with the quotation marks, and there were zero hits. I'm assuming that we've done something unique-- that no other site has done. And we're not stopping there.
In the next week or two, we're going to start providing, in the control panel, the author's tag cloud-- based on the tags the author has selected for all the articles he or she has created. This will be another first. And then... we're going to do tag clouds for you-- our readers-- if you've posted comments. We're going to put on your member page, under the STATS tab, a tag cloud that represents the tags that have been put on the articles you've commented on. If you've also submitted articles, you'll have two possible tag clouds-- the tags for the articles you've written and the tags for the articles you've commented on. I'm hoping this will encourage you to comment more or, if you haven't commented yet, to comment more. I think it could be an interesting kind of feedback, which may help us all to see what issues and topics move us to comment. When we add other new content categories, hopefully by the end of the year-- quotations/sayings/maxims/epigrams, polls, events and more statistics-- we'll be doing tag clouds that include them too. And when we get to the stats, I promise you, we'll be doing things that the MSM websites will copy.
A Privacy issue?
We want to be sure to respect your privacy, so we'll give you the option to prevent the display of your tag cloud. A bit further down the road, we'll be adding "relationship management," again, doing it better than the rest, so you'll be able to specify who can see your tag cloud-- family, close friends, colleagues, fans, etc. And you'll be able to specify who fits those categories. But the option to prevent the display of the tag cloud will have to be activated, meaning, unless you choose to hide the cloud, it will default to be visible. That's the way we're handling this now. The policy could change. What do you think?
Hmmm. this took about two hours to write. I made at least two dollars. At least I'm having fun. Don't forget. Support OpEdNews. Donate today.
Good Day and Good Luck,
rob kall
rob kall
PS About Bush's Lyme Disease
Lyme disease can cause problems with paying attention, with confusion, disorientation, depression, fatigue... and people look at Bush. And they wonder why he didn't get the blood test for Lyme disease and why he didn't tell about it until he had to. They say he had a tick bite last year. Well, his lifestyle-- biking in New England, jogging-- makes him highly vulnerable, and has, for years. Maybe that explains what a dumb, ADD, schmuck he is.
Naaah. Let's not give him such an easy excuse.
PSS And Last, there was an article yesterday in the NY Times reporting that Bush's poppy, Herbert Walker Bush, or 41, as Dubya calls him, gets upset about the bad talk about his son.
Let's discuss this. If you are the parent of a murderer or drug dealer, you probably feel bad about it. Well, what if you're the parent of someone who has caused the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands, maybe more than a million victims? What if you are the father of the most hated, despised person in the history of the world? What if you are the father of the man who has more damage to the diplomatic reputation of the US than anyone in its history? What if you are the father of the man commonly called the worst president in US history?
And the answer is-- you should feel pretty bad about it. And, since, if 41 had been prosecuted on Bill Clinton's watch, 43 would never have been elected, not even governor of Texas, Bill Clinton should feel pretty bad too.
