Brainshrub.com - Political blog with counterpoints.

Coming soon: Brainshrub.com v3.0

Paul -V- — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 15:11:02 -0400

Okay - I just put in the order with my hosting company. (Open Source Host) This site switches to Joomla by the end of the day.

Joomla - here I come.

Brainshrub v3.0.

Tucker Carlson finally came out!

Kai Schwandes — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 02:00:36 -0400

Tucker Carlson finally came out! ....

... well out of the closet of Homophobia that is. He admitted on August 28, 2007 how he took matters "in his own hand" on national TV.

"Methinks he dost protest too much".

One issue to be aware of, Mr. Carlson, is that we have learned over the years that those who are most outspoken about despising gay, bisexual, trans-gendered or lesbian people are usually fighting their own demons.

I am encouraging everyone to go and sign the petition to MSNBC letting them know we do not tolerate this kind of hate speech.

Read counter point: here

Breaking: The US has just started bombing Iran!

Paul -V- — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 13:37:23 -0400

No, there is no attack on Iran. But, judging from the state of the blogosphere this past week, when it comes to claiming the US is going to attack Iran - clearly, you don't need facts to write an inflammatory headline.

Just write something that sounds scary, claim you have a friend or acquaintance who says an attack in immanent, click "post" - and BAM... front-page on the big social networks.

This "immanent" attack of Iran has been going on for years. You'd think people would start treating these claims with skepticism by now. For example, here are the results of a quick Google search for "US to attack Iran":

2004 - Israel will attack Iran, with US backing. Sound the alarm!!!

2005 - Seymour M. Hersh alerts the public! We're gonna attack Iran!!!

2005 - Scott Ritter knows what he's talking about. I'm sure he's right this time.

2006 - The Russians are not controlled by US corporate media - so surely, they must know what they are talking about.

2007 - OMFG! A blogger is writing on DailyKos! IT MUST BE TRUE THIS TIME!!!!!

The above list is a tiny sampling of the numerous chicken-little claims which have popped up every six months or so about an immanent attack on Iran. Thankfully, like predictions of the rapture, they never happen.

Why?

Because as much as Cheney would love to get his NeoCon hands on Iran... it's not economically, politicaly or militarily possible.

Period.

Everything you read to the contrary is hyperbolic ranting from websites trolling for traffic, or bloggers craving attention... and frankly, it's getting on my nerves.

NOTE: This site is still being recovering from the hack attack last month - so comments are still being moderated.

FYI: This blog is on a repair schedule

Paul -V- — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 12:02:01 -0400

Just so you know - I found some money, and I've hired a professional to move this site out of Drupal and into Joomla.

It will may take a few weeks, but when the switch happens, most of the comments lost when this site was hacked will be returned. Also, the redesign will have the following features:

* Users will be able to create their own blogs. (A la DailyKos.)

* A forum integration into the site. (A la DemocraticUnderground.)

* Enough Spam filtering features to discourage the most die-hard Viagra marketer.

Brainshrub.com will become a community-blog. Where it goes from there will be entirely up to you.

Blog meltdown

Paul -V- — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 13:59:00 -0400

No matter what I do on the back end - the spamming doesn't stop. The spam-bots have figured out how to register, and are posting like crazy.

Therefore, I'm going to require all comments - even from registered users, to be approved until I can fix the problem.

This blog will be dumping Drupal CMS soon, and the problems should end.

Sorry for the inconvience.

I hate Drupal

Paul -V- — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 10:06:00 -0400

For some reason -over a years worth of comments have just been deleted.

This site was getting slammed by spam, so I made all comments need approval. This morning, as I was deleting the spams - when I noticed the comments has disappeared.

This is the last straw.

This past year I've had nothing but drama with this CMS. It's no longer fun to maintain this site when all I do is delete spam and install patches.

I'm gonna switch to Joomla. Screw the traffic loss.

Breaking: Sheehan running for congress

Paul -V- — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 16:39:22 -0400

How many times have you heard Progressives lament "... if only someone would so something? Why isn't anyone taking to the streets or holding anyone accountable?"

Well - I just got word that Cindy Sheehan is running for Nancy Pelosi's seat.

More Details at Raw Story and with Kos blogger Bob Fertik.

Now let's sit back and watch as the ~~surrender monkeys~~ err .. I mean "mainstream Democrats" bleat about how horrible it is that Sheehan would dare go actually do something.

Video of Bill Clinton on a date

Paul -V- — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 11:43:24 -0400

Last week I spoke with with a fellow Democrat about Senator Clinton. He was surprised to learn that I would, under almost no circumstances, vote for her in either the primary or general election.

"Rather extreme viewpoint, don't you think?" he said.

You know the electoral process in the United States is dysfunctional when it's considered "extreme" for a Democrat to refuse to vote for someone with a proven track-record of supporting the Republican agenda.

For those of you who are still thinking of supporting Clinton in the primary, here's an entertaining video from BlueGal which should change your mind. Enjoy:

And for the record - John Edwards is my favorite so far.

How the Green Party counts votes for internal offices

Kai Schwandes — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 08:25:52 -0400

I sat on the Steering Committee Election Tabulation Committee (SCETC) for the 2007 National Green Party Convention - and I'd like to share the process by which we secure and count votes for internal positions.

Eight candidates ran for the Steering Committee, which had four seats open, and people ran for Secretary. (There were also several write-ins.)

After the Ballots where cast, they were escorted by five committee members, and four observers, to the tabulation room.

The committee split into two groups of two, with one floater who was called in occasionally to help decide questionable votes. Each team had up to 4 observers.

The votes were divided into two piles, and each team took turns tallying them and recorded the results.

Both master lists were compared to ensure they were identical; if discrepancies occurred the SCETC would retrieve the ballot which had been numbered and check the correct answer.

Finally, the votes were uploaded into a specially designed software for tabulations. (We Greens use a Single transferable vote system for these kinds of elections. It's complicated math and would take too long to be done by hand.)

The original ballots and master list where copied and the original and the copy each respectively sealed.

One ballot was so badly marked that it was near impossible to decide the intent, so two observers were sent to the plenary session to track down the voter. (The election was open, so each ballot had the name of the delegate on it.)

The ballot belonged to a delegate that had cast it as a proxy, so the delegate could not be found. But since the name of the delegate for whom it was cast was also on the ballot the SCETC ask the two observers to find a person that had the phone number of the delegate whose proxy it was. A delegate was found and the person was called and clearly identified the intent so even this ballot was counted.

It would be nice if in a much more important election like President of the USA the responsible parties would undertake the same effort to ensure that every vote counts

Ralph Nader Press Conference. (live-blog)

Paul -V- — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 16:45:29 -0400

Welcome Redditors, DUers and Kossacks.

04:45 PM EST: Ralph Nader (RN) is giving a press conference in about 30 minutes, post a question in this thread, no matter how tough, and as long as it's respectful I'll ask both them.

Carl Romanelli (CR) will also be talking questions. (The guy who accepted Republican Santorum's money to run against Democrat Bob Casey Jr.)

I'm literally in the front row.

I'll update this post every five minutes or so. Hit refresh for the updates.

When the press conference starts, I'll start asking the questions, and posting his reply.

05:08 PM EST: Conference just started. Marakay Rodgers, who ran for governor last term, is be MCing and doing the intro.

05:15 PM EST: Paul Huckleberry said some words - about the Green Party being able to out-organize the Democrats.

05:17 PM EST: Now Paul Titus is saying some words about how Democrats unfairly challenged his petitions for ballot access, thus making him to have a costly fight.

05:20 PM EST: Carl Romanelli (CR) is being introduced.

05:24 PM EST: Says the Green Party said e was forced to used paid petitioner's during his Senate run because of restrictive ballot access laws ... he says there was nothing wrong with that.

05:26 PM EST: Someone just installed new light for the room. It's an improvement - but why didn't they do this BEFORE Romanelli's speech? Kinda distracting.

05:27 PM EST: Says the petitions were done with integrity, but the judge didn't even look at them. He was unfairly left off the ballot. He says he wants to report the judge for partisan behavior.

05:29 PM EST: Romanelli seems to be going on longer than allotted time - the organizers are giving signals but he keeps talking. They keep prompting off-camera.

05:32 PM EST: Bruce Afron, Naders one of Nader's attorneys is talking about how major parties conspire to keep people off the ballot.

05:37 PM EST: Afron is talking about how the state threw out ballots illegally, and forces highcourt fees for challengers

05:43 PM EST: Nader is now speaking about ballot access. He says other countries have number parties, Chile has 9, Germany has at least 5. But in the US ballot access is severely limited.

05:45 PM EST: Says Arizona has laws that say people from other states can't come over to help get people to sign petitions.

05:46 PM EST: Says Pennsylvania is the "King Kong" of restrictive ballot access laws. It is prohibitively expensive and the number of signatures necessary is ridiculous.

05:47 PM EST: Says everyone understands voters need access to the ballot; yet, candidates are not given equal access. Voter access and candidate access go hand-in-hand.

05:51 PM EST: Says the public lacks indignation over the restrictive rules, because neither of the major parties has a problem with the status quo. They spread disinformation about the situation instead.

05:56 PM EST: (Personal note: I can see why the Greens like this guy - he's a riveting speaker in person.)

06:00 PM EST: Nader predicts the restrictive ballot access laws in Pennsylvania will spread to the rest of the county if they are allowed to stand.

06:01 PM EST: Nader says we live in a two party dictatorship where ballot access is restricted. The is laughing stock material.

06:03 PM EST: There needs to be one federal ballot access rule.

06:05 PM EST: Historically the best ideas have come from 3rd parties.

06:07 PM EST: Speech ended - Q& A starts.

DAMN just lost last ten minutes because I refreshed the page without saving. Dammit, dammit, dammit. A I lost a lot of questions. :(

My question - Considering tax statements can be signed digitally, are you opening a front to allow petitions to be signed digitally?: Nader says it's the next frontier, and that it's a good idea. He posits that the mainstream parties wouldbe against it since it would allow better ballot access.

06:19 PM EST: Romanelli is giving a passionate rant about ballot access, thumped the podium... kinda startled me.

Question: Will your ballot situation be a Supreme Court case? Answer: Yes... several cases may be necessary.

06:30 PM EST: Romanelli just called America a "stinking waste dump" - he's speaking to his frustration at not having ballot access, but sheesh... that's not a good way to make friends in the public.

I like the way Titus North answers questions better. He's a bit drier in replying to questions, but with his style - it's easier to follow his points.