News and Politics

From Salon:

The Pentagon is quietly moving to fill draft board vacancies nationwide. While officials say there’s no cause to worry, some experts aren’t so sure.

The community draft boards that became notorious for sending reluctant young men off to Vietnam have languished sinced the early 1970s, their membership ebbing and their purpose all but lost when the draft was ended. But a few weeks ago, on an obscure federal Web site devoted to the war on terrorism, the Bush administration quietly began a public campaign to bring the draft boards back to life. Especially for those who were of age to fight in the Vietnam, it is an ominous flashback of a message. Even floating the idea of a draft in the months before an election would be politically explosive, and the Pentagon last week was adamant that the push to staff up the draft boards is not a portent of things to come. Increasingly, however, military experts and even some influential members of Congress are suggesting that if Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s prediction of a “long, hard slog” in Iraq and Afghanistan proves accurate, the U.S. may have no choice but to consider a draft to fully staff the nation’s military in a time of global instability.

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This is very scary. Hopefully the people won’t allow a return of the draft.

From Life and Deatherage:

Since everyone else seems to be doing it, I thought I’d give it a try. It says I have an “economic left/right” score of -4.25, and a “libertarian/authoritarian” score of -6.41. Seems about right, I guess. I never felt very Cartesian about any of this, though.

Tim Lambert is tracking how bloggers report their scores, and that puts me in the same box as Vardibidian, a blog I’ve never read. Maybe I’ll start.

My Economic Left/Right score is -1.88 and my Libertarian/Authoritarian score -7.03. Here’s my graph.

This is what I did today. We met at Hagen Park in Wilton Manors and spread out around nearby communities in groups of 2. Each group knocked on 20 doors. My group found 6 interested voters, 2 not interested, and left the surveys for the remaining ones where nobody was home. Pictured is Wilton Manors mayor Jim Stork, who coordinated the event.

Casper, Wyo., City Council members on Tuesday night unanimously rejected a request by the notorious anti-gay Rev. Fred Phelps to install a monument saying Matthew Shepard went to hell because he was gay.

The city refused to succumb to lawsuit threats from the preacher, who claims that God hates homosexuals, after a strong outpouring of community opposition to the monument, which had been deemed “revolting” by one gay rights group.

“Mr. Phelps, you are not welcome,” said Councilman Paul Bertoglio. “This city will not allow you to place your monument anywhere in our community.”

On Oct. 7, 1998, Shepard, a Casper native, was tied to a fence outside Laramie, Wyo., beaten unconscious with a gun and left to die. He died five days later.

Phelps wants to install in a park a six-foot granite monument that would include a bronze plaque with Shepard’s image and the words, “Matthew Shepard entered hell October 12, 1998, at age 21 in defiance of God’s solemn warning.”

Phelps, from Topeka, Kan., gained notoriety in 1998, by carrying signs proclaiming “God Hates Fags” outside Shepard’s funeral.

At a City Council meeting earlier this month, city leaders listened to four hours of testimony. All opposed Phelps’ monument. And on Tuesday night, about 50 people prayed for the council.

“As I look at Phelps’ life, I don’t see love as his personal agenda,” said Pastor Milo Miller of the Highland Park Community Church. “He disguises his real agenda under the cloak of Christ.”

Phelps had said that Casper must allow his Scripture-based monument on city grounds because the town already has allowed a Ten Commandments monument, which was donated to the city in the 1960s by the Fraternal Order of Eagles.

The council now must decide whether to take on a lawsuit, move the Ten Commandments monument to private land or create a special area. The council has taken initial steps to create a designated spot for the Ten Commandments. [Yahoo News]

This explains why I still haven’t received my voter registration card for my change of address, which I requested in August:

Elections Supervisor Miriam Oliphant’s office is so far behind in its work that new registration cards have not been mailed since mid-July, leaving about 80,000 Broward County residents without their voter identification.

“We have a backlog,” conceded Bruce Eldridge, the elections office’s director of computer systems.

Eldridge said the office ran out of money for the printing of registration cards and postage in mid-July.

The office has fielded hundreds of angry phone calls from voters waiting months for their cards, according to a state report released last week that was highly critical of Oliphant.

“Simpsons Creator Matt Groening Revealed That The Fox News Network Had Threatened To Sue The Simpsons Over A Parody Of The Right-Leaning News Channel (Fox News Is Soooooooo Oversensitive)” [Daypop Top 40] (original article is here)

Dyckmen lets them have it. Florida learned three things, none of them comforting, about its political leadership last week he notes:

1 – Tallahassee is too small a stadium to contain his (Byrd’s) boundless demagoguery and contempt for constitutional principles. He needs to play in the same grand arena as Huey Long and Joe McCarthy.

2 -The boundless hypocrisy of Jeb Bush

3 – Your living will may soon be worthless.
[Flablog]

“Don’t the Democrats care even a little about terrorism? ” [Daypop Top 40] [original article here]

This is fucking bullshit. The republicans know their best bet for Bush to win is by keeping us constantly afraid of terrorists and constantly making up new threats. As a bonus, it also lets them take away more of our civil rights and most people are stupid enough to willingly give up rights for the illusion of security. As Benjamin Franklin said, “Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety.”

If I sound pissed off, I am. I’m fucking mad as hell and devoting every bit of my energy to make sure Bush doesn’t get elected next year.

http://www.moveon.org/87billion.mpg

Troxler on how an Arrogant Legislature finally walks all over itself.

Tuesday’s banana republic mayhem was a spectacularly bad way to make new law. It was immature and intemperate. It was inconstant. It was law made up on the spot by a flock of clucking chickens jerking their heads in unison at loud noises and bright flashes of light.
[Flablog]