Good Morning Fitz!

Fitz!

Damn you, ccmask!

I hope Markos rips Pumpkinhead a new asshole!

It’s all in the wrist, R.Fisher….

OK, I don’t mean to be paranoid or anything, but does it look to anyone else like DailyKos has been hacked out of existence? Is anyone else seeing anything (or not, as it were) over there?

I was just over there about 10 minutes ago and all was well.

Hope everybody had a great time at yKos.

I left a longish story on the previous thread about dinner with a Congressperson and talking about Glenn’s book — 43 and 57.

Also a piece at 78 about Gitmo but that’s just my normal rant.

Meet the Press was on at 3:00 am this morning. It has never been on at that time before. Go figure, I missed it.

I have lurked here for a very long time, though I have only commented a few times. I have been following the Plame affair since Wilson’s op ed. I check in with FDL several times a day, the comments being every bit as good as the posts.

I do appreciate all the comments and photos from YKos. I got to see the Plame panel on CSPAN and wow, what a fantastic group of perspectives on my favorite topic.

With all the publicity for FDL, there will be much more traffic to the site. We have so many excellent commentators who share knowledge and explain things so clearly, even a lay person like me can understand the differences between regular grand jury vs. a special grand jury.

One thing occured as I was reading the comments several threads down about bloggers, diarists (sp?), or commentors on other blogs whose real identies have been revealed and publicized. For those of you who want to keep the mystery of your screen names, please prepare what you are going to communicate to people if you are outed. Who knows when a troll, a pissed off media person or political operative (perhaps our own government?) might make you a target of a smear campaign.

Outing your identity may have consequences for some of you in your life, so you need to think about how you will want to communicate with your family, employer, clients or colleagues should that happen.

Am I being to paranoid here? I don’t think so. Look what happened to Armando.

Keep up the good work. Now returning to lurking status.

Backyard is full of yellow finches. Cute but messy birds.

I was laying new sod yesterday and enjoyed chatting with the robins looking for worms.

BTW, does anyone have a pic of jonah in his military uni?

Go Markos!

MTP is playing earlier than normal today, due to French Open. Markos was magnificient, absolutely magnificient. Hit all the right notes. Russert threw him some good pitches for MArkos to hit the ball out of the park.
Byron York was a bit snarky, but it was expected of him, after having attended ykos.

Dkos seems fine from here.

How do I go about changing my user name on FDL? Can I just delete the old one above and type in the new one, or do I have to close the entire old account out and start afresh?

There are no ‘accounts’ on FDL. Just change it (on your next post) and have your browser remember the new name.

Those lineups on most of those shows makes it abundantly clear that the so called ‘msm’ are a nearly worthless lot.

Here’s to hoping that Kos is heard on not just seen when he speaks on MTpW.

After having read many of the ‘msm’s’ takes on Yearlykos, I have the stomach churning feeling that they like to pretend that the so called ‘left leaning’ blogosphere is something they tolerate like so many noisy children. And so, I thought that old condescending blurb, being seen and not heard, was apporopriate.

Will the Democratic Party’s Future Be Born of Kos?
Sunday, June 11, 2006 By Ronald Brownstein Los Angeles Times

By Ronald Brownstein Los Angeles Times

LAS VEGAS — Fans of the popular liberal Web site Daily Kos gathered here this weekend for an irreverent and impassioned conference that blended elements of a political convention, a revival meeting and what one attendee called a “summer camp reunion for people who have never met each other.”

The four-day event, which drew 1,000 people, may have marked a milestone in the evolution of the online liberal community from scruffy insurgents to an institutionalized force within the Democratic Party.
snip
Yet the weekend offered plenty of evidence for why the netroots will be difficult for Democrats to domesticate. The bloggers and liberal activists who filled the panels and workshops condemned the Washington Democratic establishment almost as enthusiastically as the Republican Party, President Bush and the mainstream media.
snip
“Lieberman is going to be taken down, and the message is going to be it’s not just enough to call yourself a Democrat — you’ve got to walk the walk,” said Diane Masters, an emergency-room physician from Freemont, Mich., who attended.
snip
read the whole story here….
http://www.cantonrep.com/index.....ategory=23

Other stories:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....4PVB25.DTL
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/b.....789936.htm
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pb.....10314/1022
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....log11.html
http://www.seeingtheforest.com....._build.htm
http://www.journalnow.com/serv.....&path=!nationworld&s=

Of course, Markos is on with Timmeh and NBC has pre-empted the whole sunday morning schedule for the French Open tennis match.

Wouldn’t ya know it.

I caught Markos–he was good but rightfully looked like he could use a good long rest and a large hot cup of coffee.

Bad news: I missed Meet The Press cause they ran it an hour early (French Open coverage).
Good news: we can watch it on line anytime after after 1pm ET at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10005066/

didnt NBC rename it the Freedom Open Tennis Match ?

Thanks moeman!

“National Review’s Byron York”

Discusses yet another convention where he did not get laid.

Meet The Press is scheduled to replay at 7:00 PM Pacific Time on MSNBC.

I missed the first part of MTP, but to find fault w/ Russet’s performance I can’t. Did anyone catch the end with Sen.Bryd Fantastic!!!

Re the lovely birds pictured above, I have been noticing more the variety of birds that inhabit the line of pine trees outside my door. While I love in a small town, my mobilehome park is very crowded, but the line of trees stretches for hundreds of yards straight into the neighboring farm field. Thus these trees are well inhabited by many different birds and ‘critters.’

I saw a small yellow bird about 5 feet from my window the other day and, surprising, I remembered that moment all day long and it made me smile every time. I am going to put up a bird feeder at the tree line along with a bird bath. Last night I was shopping and took a look at the varieties of bird food — wow. Songbird food? Regular food? Fruit food? Any ideas on some generally eaten food?

Also, am so very glad that the conference was the ‘eureka’ moment for so many and hopefully there will be one next year which I will being saving for NOW. Congrats to Jane and Christy who obviously made quite an impression on the rest of the blogosphere — altho I am guessing there weren’t many there who had not heard of the famous ladies of the lake.

Great going everyone.

Have a couple of points that I was thinking about last night. (Oh BTW: Morning everybody!).

One is: The republicans through the media, have a protective shell around their candidates. The most obvious example of this is Bush - even though he will probably go down in history as the worst President in history, even though almost every decision has been a complete disaster, he still is protected and defended so by the pundit class, who think he is a ‘good guy’. And Al Gore, who has been right on every major issue in the last 20 years, who is a brilliant public servant, and who has a wealth of experience in a very successful administration, gets made fun of.

We have to find a way to break down these shells the media sets up. Why isn’t the MSM carrying the fact that Bush could of killed Zarqawi many times before now? That he waited to kill him basically because he wanted to use Zarqawi to show there was a link between Al Queda and Iraq before the war started? (Even though Zarqawi was in an area Saddam didn’t control.) Have they interviewed the family of a soldier who was killed because of that disasterous decision? And why does the WP bury THAT news on page 15? If they had sent in an air strike to kill Zarqawi and kept the focus on getting Osama, both of them would of been dead long ago, and thousands of lives might have been saved. There are consequences to bad decisions, for Christ’s sake. Wake up MSM.

How many clones of Donna Brazile are running around out there, and how exactly can we get them all into captivity?

There are 35 stories on Google News re Yearly Kos.

MTP General Barry McCaffrey (ret.) said in comments on Guantanamo suicides:
This was an act of political warfare by the three people who committed suicide in Guantanamo. The same as the people who commit suicide in downtown Baghdad.

Timmeh did not say a word.

McCaffrey’s comments on the suicides seem backwards to me. It’s an act of political warfare on the part of Bush by keeping them detained for so long without charges.

get ready and gear up for this;

think progress has the storky

the administration is actually claiming there are “4 sites” that have yet to be “searched”

translation;

they have managed to plant some nuclear or chemical weapons, it’s taken so long, I’m gonna bet they’ve done a decent job

this administration is so brazen they know the press will back him up and the gop will win.

we have GOT to be ready to ridicule the very notion that the administration didn’t “search” these four sites

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....22719.html

they will be ready with some kind of exuse, corporate media will be all over it.

I’ve been getting this warning for about 3 months now, I think they are about to let loose

sorry, think progress is linking to the huffington post story

GOP Rep.: “I Think The Jury Is Still Out On [Iraqi] WMD”…
Delaware County Times | WILLIAM BENDER | Posted June 10, 2006 08:35 PM

READ MORE: Saddam Hussein, Iraq
While Sestak said Iraq was “not a clear nor a present danger” because no weapons of mass destruction have been found, Weldon said he knows of four sites in Basra and Nasiriyah that have yet to be searched for biological or chemical weapons.

“I think the jury is still out on WMD,” said Weldon, who also believes Saddam Hussein may have smuggled the weapons to Syria with Russian assistance prior to the March 2003 invasion.

me to me- lmao… no shame no shame snake belly flash dance.

uereka

the republicans will go nuts if they can even imply that anything at all.

all in time for the elections too

me to me-
And let me guess, they will find WMD’s at three of the four sites.

I think Weldon is campaigning on the only subject that might work for him; his criticism of Sestak for how Sestak chose to treat his daughter’s brain tumor pretty much blew up in his face.

cathy, it’s funny to me and you, but it’s what they will go with…their constituents will grab at anytthing, they are victim to cognitive dissonance.

The msm needs some fruit…cynical as I am, I think the majority of people will pull out tin foil hats at this point. MSM, I wouldn’t wager on.

me to me-
Yes and the media whores will be all over this and it will make all the talk shows for an endless amount of time. Bush was right after all. And then they will say that since there actually were WMD’s, then everything else was worth it.

Eureka-
This is mainly for his base and a few others who regularly drink the koolaid. The rest of us will just groan.

Re: the Weldon claim - this is not the “administration” or the military in Iraq, but Curt “Able Danger” Weldon, better known as Congressman Tinfoil Hat. He’s as looney as Daffy Duck.

people have put their party over their country and they will go along with anything this party says

they don’t want to be so wrong

it’s cognitive dissonance and it’s escalading investment

both of those psychological factors will help them vore for their party yet agains

The detainees in Guantanamo were shopped by local enemies who got reward money. Guantanamo doesn’t hold anybody of any value to our intelligence [excuse me while i puke] community. McCaffrey only confirms we’ve lost Iraq to Iran, but what can you expect from a propagandizing parrot? Suicide is all that the defenseless, hopeless and weak have when facing the firepower of America and Zion.

Bush himself doesn’t know what to make of Zarqawi’s death. Although Bush loves death and loves sending American kids to their deaths in a war that Bush sees as being unending, he says that Z’s death was a good thing [guess he got it from Martha] and that Z’s death will entail more violence. Make up your mind, you tubby little twit

Exactly. Even IF they found some, should probably not dig it up.

zarqawis’s very existance in power is BECAUSE of Bush

I would like this point to be hammered every time his death is even mentioned

And, in the background, part of the reason for so much hatred generated in the Middle East and in our own country is this, caused by the unresolved conflict in Palestine-Israel:

From The Guardian:

“…just hours after dramatic scenes in Gaza when thousands of mourners expressed grief and anger during the funeral of the family killed by an Israeli attack as they picnicked on a beach. The sobs of seven-year-old survivor Huda Ghalia disturbed onlookers as the girl screamed ‘Don’t leave me, don’t leave me’ to the shrouded bodies of her mother and father and three brothers and sisters. A total of seven people died in the shelling of the beach on Friday.”

I have written to the Israeli Embassy in Washington. You should do the same. This killing, back and forth, has to stop!

I’m sorry, but who, exactly, is going to believe that in Year 4 of the Iraq occupation, we have somehow just not taken the time to search these alleged 4 sites? Is there anyone who would believe that the only thing that has kept these WMDs from being discovered, or unearthed, is that WE haven’t searched for them there? Is it really possible that for all the crap the administration took for not discovering the WMD they sent us into Iraq on account of, that they would wait 4 years to suddenly realize they forgot to look up their own asses for them?

It is still too early in the morning, and just too silly for Sunday. I hope Weldon likes the taste of his own toes, because he may never be able to get his foot out of his mouth on this one.

Anne-
The answer to that is in my 42. That’s who would believe it.

cathy - I can’t imagine those 28 votes would help him too much…LOL

Wonder if Murtha will chime in on this and smack Weldon back into submission…

I would think that if there really was WMD’s hidden, (I don’t) that the Iraqi’s would have found them by now and used them on us.

Some chemicals (wmd style) have expiration dates. iirc

This just showed up on the WaPo home page.

Democrats Raising More Money than Republicans

Seems to me that the tie-in between this money and our agenda is an important function of all left blogs, including FDL. I assume it was stressed at YKOS. (Otherwise, we hand Democratic candidates our cash, and they can — if they’re so inclined — piss on our agenda, which for me was a particularly distressing subtext of Jane’s run-in yesterday with BB on the subject of Lieberman/Lamont.)

I have a very large, mostly chemical-free garden designed as a haven for people, birds, butterflys, dogs, and the occasional squirrel. I have two large mesh feeders filled with nijer seed and attract as many as 100 goldfinches at a time during the summer, although the numbers seem a bit down this summer. I also have feeders with black oil sunflower seeds for a year-round variety of birds.

GrandmaJ at 26

the yellow birds are probably goldfinches, like those pictured. You can feed them niger thistle which is like what they eat in the wild, (plus discourages other “less desireable birds). Or you can do sunflower as shown here if you don’t mind the shells. I feed them shelled sunflower chips which they LOVE, and deal with the pesky housefinches when they come. The good news is that EVERYONE likes shelled sunflower seeds, woodpeckers, chickadees, titmice…its a winner. The Goldfinches won’t be this pretty all year, so enjoy the flying daffodils while you can!

A grassroots/netroots idea on preventing the inclusion of website ads sponsored by right wing, big corporate, lobbyist, swiftboat group, SOB, big monied, lying advertisers.

From checking FDL’s ad purchase page, for example, a one month ad costs $4000.00.

Why not design an ad that would refute the right wing message and counter it thusly:

“This ad and these Progressive Patriots stand in place of a bogus and misleading ad that would otherwise occupy this space. The ad in question proclaims net neutrality. It is seen on other progressive sites because thay could not resist taking the man’s money. Understand that the other ad’s message is FALSE and its intent is to help to sell off the internet to the big communications companies. The following Progressive Patriots have contributed to FDL so that we could tell the bad guys to take their dirty money and stick it. We at FDL stand by our principles. Then, a list of donors would follow: hackworth, and etc.

One hundred posters/bloggers at forty dollars each or forty bloggers at one hundred dollars each would pay for one month’s ad. Some would contribute without desiring to have a name posted.

Sure, its (more) hard work, but it might be worth an attempt. Then, if people bitch about it later, tell em they should have put their money where their mouth is. They had a chance.
Its just like politics. We get run over, in part, because the lobbyists/rethugs have the big bucks (and also b/c they own the tv stations).

This could be offered in the future before accepting money from bad people who are working hard to crush Progressive Values.

In keeeping with the spirit of YKos and the good fight, the following from Driftglass:

It is a blessing to have been taught that tolerance, respect, civil rights and privacy are basic virtues, but you was robbed, darlin’, if you were told that you would enjoy these things forever at no cost and without struggle.

The world is full of busy men with money and power working every day to strip-mine those values off the face of the Earth and replace them with a tidy, Flag-and-Bible-driven Corporate Christian state free of any vestigial traces of genuine democracy.

And oh my yes, they will fuck with you. For their own reasons or for no reason at all, your life will be tampered with, prodded and scarred by people who are running an agenda that is loathsome to you, and antithetical to every value your parents taught you to adore.

And sometimes they win. Outright. And no cavalry shows up in the third reel to save the fort.

I hate to break it to you kid, but we’re the cavalry.

Just you and me.

http://driftglass.blogspot.com/

Sorry, went from my bad memory. One month ad on FDL is $2400.00 NOT $4000.00. Point remains the same.

Here’s a question that might be worth delving into: doesn’t every person, group, and corporate executive want the candidate to whom a contribution is given to be an advocate for the agenda or issue that is at the top of the contributor’s priority list?

The obvious answer is “yes.” People give money to candidates they think will best represent their interests, but within a party, there are people whose interests are not necessarily in lock-step. It has to be a balancing act, and we have to look at the larger goals as well as the smaller goals.

For example, we know that we will not regain a majority in either house of Congress unless our party’s candidates win. But, we not only need candidates who can win, we need candidates who, after they win, will not reveal themselves to be Republicans in Democratic clothing.

I think it’s important for whichever candidates we want to support to know that their victory may hinge on our support, and that if they want to keep that support, they will have to honor the trust we expect in return for our contributions. In other words, the work isn’t done after the win - in fact, it may just be beginning. These candidates have to know that we are going to dog them, keep them honest, and keep them accountable, and be a presence they cannot ignore.

And somehow, we have to do this knowing that there will be times when nothing will be as black and white as we want it to be, and that sometimes we are going to have to settle for half a loaf rather than go hungry.

The danger we face, I think, is cutting off our nose to spite our face, and that as much as it galls us to have to see the shades of grey that do exist, we may have to push past them if we want to regain the power we need to set the country on a better and truer course.

Good Morning Firebirds,

Christy, thanks so much for remembering us birders

Missed Markos on MTP - thanks everyone for the re broadcast info upthread -

MTP - Sunday nights @ 9 on CNBC

GrandmaJ - always so good to see you on the board

Bird Food - usually the local Audubon Society has info for your area birds

Grandma J,
Pacifica has the right idea. Don’t forget water: a birdbath (keep it clean!) is a bird magnet.
Take a look at the Wildlife Federation http://www.nwf.org/backyardwildlifehabitat/
for starters, and beware: you’ll be hooked.

Hope is the thing with feathers. . .

Congrats on being invited to participate in the TBA Conference. You will be in some stellar company.

I too have been unsuccessful accessing the daily kos website.Whats up?

Morning, y’all — I’m at the YKos interfaith service, where revdeb will be offering the prayers. This is the first time I have been in a church — well, OK, it’s a conference room, but they’re trying — where computers were welcome. Pastordan is now well into his sermon, so I’ll listen some and return later.

Anne @ June 11th, 2006 at 8:16 am

Exactly our dilemma, well said. Since most of our money is given without even a casual statement of what we, as individual contributors, consider the most important priorities, having a forum like FDL, which the candidates track, can help us articulate what we want them to do.

It’s important, though, that they recognize the connection. I think we can rely on Christy and Jane to highlight the emerging agenda, but it’s up to us to mention, when we’re handing over the check, just which community we belong to.

Dunno, loosetooth. Just went over there, and it looked normal.

Tech issues might take a little while to solve because their chief tech guy had his house partly demolished by an out-of-control pickup truck last night. Fortunately, the guy and his wife and daughter were in Vegas at YKos out of harm’s way, but they’re headed back to what’s left of “home” to figure out what to do next.

Real nice!
I turn on the tv to see Markos on meet the press,only to find-tennis!
Its a winger plot!Pass me the tinfiol!Haha!
Oh well….

Hypatia-
Good point! I do have a birdbath. Hooked up to water with a timer to refresh a couple of times a day. The water overflows into the garden. Also, deep beds with lots of shrubs and trees for refuge. And I stagger when I trim back my garden plants so they always have plenty of coverage.

My 2 canaries share a large (24″x30″x50″) cage which is designed to feel like they are up in a tree, looks out a sliding glass door into the garden. They enjoy the company and sing with the birds outside.

And the thing with feathers has perched again in my heart. I watched enough of YKos to begin thinking hope may not be a fool’s game. Despair has been my steady companion as I’ve seen all I hold dear trashed and trampled, but today I went to Act Blue and ponied up my widow’s mite (snark at Katherine Harris) to Sestak, Tester, and Lamont. Thanks all. Thanks Christy & Jane for this site, and for your gleaming intellects and matching integrity. And Pach and Howie, and the bright, funny, thoughtful, passionate regulars, thanks to you all as well.

Hypatia - I think most of us are feeling what you feel - even those of us who weren’t fortunate enough to be able to attend. Jane and Christy and the FDL team did a masterful job of keeping us connected to the goings-on, so much so that I think some of us may, in telling stories years from now, swear that we actually were there!

Now, we just have to maintain the momentum, and the pressure, and never let up. Hope helps with that a lot, I think! *g*

Pastordan has had several applause lines, or they would be applause lines in another venue. Instead, he has asked for an “amen” and gotten a bunch of them. Then, he said the atheists could give him a “yep” and was surprised, a little, by the chorus of “yeps” from all over the room. BTW, I have no idea when MTP is on in Las Vegas. I did catch the tail end of a segment on Ykos on ABC with Wonkette and some wingnut with a beard. More later.

jayt,

thanks for the Drifty clip - my own thinking has evolved to that point in the last few months - We are indeed the cavalry

personally, have been reading lots of letters, posts, and pamphlets from the Revolutionary period as a means to gain insight on the battles ahead and to strengthen my own resolve for same. would love to believe we have already crossed the Delaware and marched to Trenton, but I just don’t know, and unfortunately there may be several Trenton’s ahead for us. Outside of gratitude, my only prayers these days are for strength

Christy –

The sparrow-like bird behind the feeder in your picture looks to me to be a male house finch, based on the reddish tones around the throat blending into the mottled tan on the breast.

I’m having access problems to DKos as well-there may be a big spike in traffic following Kos’s MTP appearance.

Up here in the Santa Cruz Mountains, in the temperate redwood rain forest, we are blessed with an abundance of birds and other critters.

Ivy, http://www.ivyjoy.com/webcam/ , has birdfeeders on webcam between dawn and duck, west coast times that refreshes every 10 minutes. There are bird identification links in addition to the Backyard Critter Cam link, where you will many times see mule deer in the yard under the birdfeeders.

My only connection to the site is we are located in the same town. Nice redwood tree eye candy in the background.

huh? you mean that wasn’t Kos playing winning tennis?

Arlen on Wolfie - stating that any claims of blanket amnesty in his proposed NSA legistlation are patently false, (whatever) also claiming his on going willingness to issue subpoenas and hold hearings, “although I may not have the votes” (as a result of Darth’s lobbying other members of the committee)

really Senator ? might all those poor souls you call democrats on the committee be willing to vote your way ?!?!

errant finger to brain connection… make that duck to dawn…

A HUGE THANKYOU! to all those who trekked out to take part in the wonderful gathering in Vegas, as well as those who stay tuned in even when they have to stay home. I used to feel so alone in my distress over what the w admin. has wrought. Now I am mightily cheered, feeling part of a wonderful community of sane & savvy activists.
You guys, all of you, give me hope again.

And yes indeed, thanks Christy for our morning birdies. We have a conservation easement on our small OH woods amidst the urban sprawl. And we’ve planted wildlife-friendly stuff all around our yard. So we see lots of these guys year-round. Still, we never get tired of them. Those Goldfinches are indeed like a flying daffodil in the summer (& not too shabby in their more muted winter garb either). At our house, they prefer those hanging tube feeders, and chow down mightily on oil sunflower seed. BTW, my bet on the little partially hidden “mystery sparrow” is probably House Finch. They hang around in mixed flocks with Goldfinches. They’ll eat you out of house & home, but they’re well worth the price too.
Now I’m off to “work” — in our veg. garden, about 10′ from our nesting Bluebirds. Yes, poppa bluebird joins me - very tame. No need for an i-pod here. Hard to beat those working conditions. Rough life, eh?

Oh, and thanks to those who clued the rest of us in on how to see Markos in spite of NBC’s need to feed the sports gods, and to those publishing links to YKos coverage.

Really have to play catch-up here sometimes, and greatly appreciate the reads! Terrific that C-Span covered some. Wahoo! I was cheering for the guys on the Plame panel and - silly me - joining in with the standing O’s. Nice job everyone! ;->

ok, i’m giving up and going back to lurking… 3rd time is a charm “dawn to dusk”

Did anyone see Lewis Black on HBO last night? Had me giggling for a full hour.I just don’t know how he keeps from falling over from high blood pressure,lol.

If you get the chance to see it,do.

OT as to birds but not as to twittering:

Yoohoo, if you don’t mind, I could use your blue-pencil advice here.

After reading some of this weekend’s posts on Net Neutrality, I just had to jump off to draft this LTE to my local paper. Since it’s just a draft at this point, please feel free to offer any suggestions you may have for tightening or otherwise improving it. (You may recognize Lessig’s WaPo piece — h/t BobbyG — and some of your own comments as my inspirations, so I’m also eager to get your sense of whether I’ve sailed too close to plagiarism anywhere.)

Here goes:

I am writing this, and perhaps you are reading it, online. So please let me ask you something. In your life, how important is free, unfettered access to the Internet?

How would you like it if, rather than being able to visit anywhere on the Web you like, anytime you like, for free and at the speed of light, instead you were faced with an Internet that operates like cable TV? What if someone suddenly threw up toll-booths on your Information Superhighway? What do you think would happen to our cost of living if the major websites we visit all the time — our health insurers, our banks, our favorite online retailers — had to start bribing someone heavily just to be there for us?

Well, have you heard what happened in the U.S. House of Representatives last week? Maybe you glanced at the headline “‘Net neutrality’ backers vow to fight telecom bill” on page 3 of Saturday’s News-Journal? That story merited more than a glance. It reported that, Friday, the House Republicans carried the day on a bill backed by the major cable and phone companies that would, should the Senate and the President agree and sign on, produce exactly these results and worse.

The term “Net Neutrality” refers to the fact that, from the beginning of the World Wide Web until last year — when the Republican members of the Federal Communications Commission managed to change the rules — all companies owning the hardware that brings us the Internet have had to treat all content moving across those wires, fibers, switches and whatnot equally. The phone and cable giants could never before auction off access to the cyber express-lane to the highest bidders, leaving everyone else stuck on en electronic equivalent of a dirt road. But that’s exactly what they want Congress and the President to okay now.

Big Telecom so wants to monopolize the Net, turning it into a coin-operated gated community of its own, that it’s putting up fake “grass-roots” advertising campaigns all over the place (as backup to its heavy campaign contributions to friendly Congressmen like Tom Feeney and Dan Mica). Have you recently seen a TV ad sponsored by “Hands Off the Internet” or “NetCompetition.org”? Well soo-prise, soo-prise: those organizations are the “fake IDs” of AT&T, Verizon and Comcast.

There is, however, a true grass-roots coalition — made up of thousands of individual Net users, entrepreneurs, bloggers, and such diverse groups as the Christian Coalition of America, MoveOn.org, National Religious Broadcasters, the Service Employees International Union, the American Library Association, AARP, many Silicon Valley concerns and major retailers — that has formed to oppose the telecoms’ push for more profits at the expense of our free Internet.

All these very different users of the Net have joined forces because they understand one basic fact: There is absolutely zero benefit to the public in destroying Net Neutrality.

So please, as soon as you finish reading this, get up and write or telephone your Senators Bill Nelson and Mel Martinez to tell them what you think of this bill. They’re about to have to vote yea or nay to an unconstitutional slowing down of our free, unfettered speech on the Net (unless we pay the freight). Please give then your free, unfettered advice on which vote to cast for you.

I’m interested in someone posting a comment regarding the NET NEUTRALITY issue, short and sweet, about the key points that should be stressed when contacting legislators. I need to prepare my messages today to send tomorrow.

Thanks, in advance, for any assistance provided.

oh! oh! oh! Lou Dobbs is going to have conniptions … a tropical storm is wandering around named “Alberto” — it’d damn well better have correct papers if it dares make landfall on the U.S. of A. !

Daily Kos seems to be hosed right now, at least from my Comcast hookup in Laurel, MD. Who knows what’s causing it…but it was fine one minute then it was “disappeared”!

“leaving everyone else stuck on THE electronic equivalent of a dirt road,” that should read.

“Please give theM your free, unfettered advice on which vote to cast for you.”

Wow! Revdeb was amazing. Her church is SO lucky to have her. Signing off for a bit.

The intern I called a few weeks back,as the committee was ‘working’ on it, wanted the Bil number (HS ##?) whatever. pissed me off THEY IN DC didnt’t know ‘net neutrality’ at all.

Forewarned is four-armed….

lotus - great letter!

Rove’s master strategy for keeping republicans in power ensures that America will fail. He works from the understanding that republicans must appeal to freaks of religiosity. Foreigners have looked up to America because its founders were creatures of the enlightenment who knew they had to keep religiosity from infecting the body politic. But now foreigners are seeing that America’s foreign policy is based in religiosity. For ages America has undermined democracy around the world, overthrowing democratically elected governments in Iran, Guatemala etc, and boosting brutal dictators wherever it could. Foreigners, including those ruled by communist dictators, still looked up to America, which they saw as being their main chance. Today, though, foreigners see that America follows the dictates of jesus freaks and zionists, even to the extent of stretching our military beyond its human capacity, thus resulting in horrifying treatment of prisoners in Iraq, in Guantanamo and in secret holding cells. Unlike naive Americans, foreigners know that 9/11 was an ibside job. Consequently Rove’s strategy only alienates those foregners who might otherwise help in getting China and Russia to work with America in building a better world. america may have military firepower but it lacks financial firepower, depending as it does on the generosity of China, Japan and others. Japan can see where this is leading, so it’s stregthening its armaments. Soon America will have no friends because even Israel is cozying up to Russia in order to get the energy it needs.

For those of you unable to get into DKos, sprinle linked to this Conneticut Post op-ed, an open letter to Ann Coulter’s mother:

http://www.connpost.com/search//ci_3924863

I’d pretty much let go of this issue already, but we need to see more of this kind of communication: adults calling bullshit on the delinquent childern of other (presumed) adults.

This Curt Weldon campaign commercial has been brought to you by the fine folks at Reynolds Aluminum Wrap.

-GSD

good morning lotus,

my .02
your piece is well written and hits upon all the right notes - however, it is way too long for an LTE when considering attention spans, even of those still reading newspapers

‘This week, Senators Nelson and Martinez will take up legistlation (Senate Bill# xxx) that would benefit the Telcos by turning your internet in to a toll road - resulting in higher costs and much slower access

Contact them (phone or fax) and urge them to vote no, blah blah blah’

*Ilson,

Hurricane Alberto took my job and is now demanding insurance too.

-GSD

Congrats to Christy and all the other yKossacks, you’ve done very well.

P.S. I like the bird blogging, too!

and if Hurricane Alberto spawns any tornados while in the US, FEMA will end up having to pay for damages caused by those “anchor tornados” !

cbl — thanks (and I was afraid of that too). How much “blah blah blah” should I keep?

I join lotus 82 & 86 and Curious in Central TX 83 in pleading for help phrasing thots for legislators & letters to editor on the net neutrality issue.

It’s not only a confusing issue, but it’s been pretty obvious that various factions with plentymoney are putting lots of ads out there deliberately to make it hard for the public to grasp the inherent dangers in what bigbidness is pushing for. A # of them blatantly phrasing ads: “up = down,” “yes = no,” etc.

Maddening, and frightening issue, but hard for us laypersons to tackle with understandable & correct lingo.

You wonderfully articulate, tech-savvy folk: Help! Please? Happy to continue writing plentyletters, but definitely need jargon-free help phrasing same. Much thanks! ;->

woohoo! once-upon-a-time President Al Gore will be on Larry King, Tuesday, CNN 9pm ET talking about climate change…

A good central location info repository for ‘net neutrality tech and policy stuff:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality

Lessig & McChesney’s 6/9 OpEd:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....ILMAH1.DTL

“…The implications of permanently losing network neutrality could not be more serious. The legislation, backed by companies such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast, would allow the firms to create different tiers of online service. They would be able to sell access to the express lane to deep-pocketed corporations and relegate everyone else to the digital equivalent of a winding dirt road. Worse still, these gatekeepers would determine who gets premium treatment and who doesn’t.

Their idea is to stand between the content provider and the consumer, demanding a toll to guarantee quality delivery. It’s what Timothy Wu, an Internet policy expert at Columbia University, calls “the Tony Soprano business model”: By extorting protection money from every Web site — from the smallest blogger to Google — network owners would earn huge profits. Meanwhile, they could slow or even block the Web sites and services of their competitors or those who refuse to pay up. They’d like Congress to “trust them” to behave.

Without net neutrality, the Internet would start to look like cable TV. A handful of massive companies would control access and distribution of content, deciding what you get to see and how much it costs. Major industries such as health care, finance, retailing and gambling would face huge tariffs for fast, secure Internet use — all subject to discriminatory and exclusive deal-making with telephone and cable giants.

We would lose the opportunity to vastly expand access and distribution of independent news and community information through broadband television. More than 60 percent of Web content is created by regular people, not corporations. How will this innovation and production thrive if creators must seek permission from a cartel of network owners?

The smell of windfall profits is in the air in Washington. The phone companies are pulling out all the stops to legislate themselves monopoly power. They’re spending tens of millions of dollars on inside-the-Beltway print, radio and TV ads; high-priced lobbyists; coin-operated think tanks; and fake grassroots operations with such Orwellian names as Hands Off the Internet and NetCompetition.org…”

Lotus,

‘This week, Senators Nelson and Martinez will take up legistlation (Senate Bill# xxx) that would only benefit the Telcos by turning your internet in to a toll road - resulting in higher costs/fees to continue the level of access you currently enjoy and much slower access for those not willing to pay higher the fees

Contact them (phone or fax) and let them know you understand the true nature and impact of this bill and urge them to vote NO

very rough draft, but that’s about all an LTE on this issue should have

what they are up to

who it benefits

impact on everyday life ($$$)

would be nice if we could find a simple one pager type link you could reference

again, it’s only my 02. yours is a well written piece (would make a nice op ed btw)

Thanks again, cbl. (Meanwhile, I’ve just emailed the current draft to an acquaintance who’s an N-J columnist, requesting his advice on whether it’s an LTE or a “guest editorial” — which they’ve allowed me before — and any other thoughts he has on it . . .)

I

W A N T

S O M E

V E G A S

P I X

N O W ! ! !
not you Bobby G, you’ve done your part although more are always appreciated - just can’t believe it’s been four days since all those ‘tech-savy’ folks hit Vegas and the dearth of photos chronicling the event is startling

ON Topic for a change:

Some tidbits from today’s WaPo:

Moulitsas’s message is clear and uncompromising. “The media elite has failed us,” he says. “The political elite has failed us. Both parties. Republicans failed us because they can’t govern. Democrats failed us because they can’t get elected.”

I love that last bit “the repubs failed us b/c they can’t govern, the dems failed us /c they can’t get elected” Yup, that’s it in a nutshell alright.

This next quote is from Warner

“I think it’s evolving,” he said of the net-roots community. “I think these guys and gals are potentially creating a new public square for democracy. And they are an unorganized, unorthodox jumble. What started as occasional voices venting is now turning into what could be a major