Turning the Danube Back to Blue (Deutsche Welle)

Blue Danube happens to be the name of my business. On hearing this, people who have seen the Danube invariably inform me that it's really more brown or gray than blue. Could that finally be changing?
Turning the Danube Back to Blue

International Support for Ukrainian Democracy

International Support for Ukrainian Democracy

Color me liberal

I'm starting to think it would be more useful for the political center-to-left to aggressively embrace the term "liberal" than to remain continually on the defensive in explaining why we're not. I haven't particularly thought of myself as a "liberal" for a long time, but if it distances me from the SOBs who have usurped the good name of "conservative" lately, color me liberal.

Demurring that we prefer the term "progressive" just strengthens the right wing's continued ability to define what a "liberal" is in the public mind, and it certainly won't stop them from applying the L-word to us. (See, liberals know they're such degenerates that even they are ashamed to admit that's what they are!) The right has forged the word into a potent weapon in recent years. It's time to take that weapon away from them.

What I'd like to see happen, helped along by a little savvy editorializing and blogging and
message-awareness, is that when the 48% of the American electorate that went "blue" this November realizes that the wingnuts are all too happy to keep tarring all of us, along with the often all-too-moderate candidates we supported, with the "liberal" (big-government, tax-and-spend, welfare-loving, criminal-coddling, unpatriotic, non-troops-supporting, baby-killing, immoral, gun-confiscating, anti-Christian, etc.) brush, the idea that liberals are some kind of lunatic fringe that's "out of touch with America" will start to evaporate. That's just too big a group to marginalize, or at least it ought to be. A lot of people are angry at the idea that opposing Monkey Boy and the neocon agenda somehow means we're not true Americans, and there's an opportunity to tap into that anger to start swinging the whole liberal/conservative propaganda complex in the other direction.

Personally, the political atmosphere being what it is, I wouldn't have many scruples about caricaturing "conservatives" as warmongering, witch-burning, flat-earther, corporate suck-up bible-thumpers who want to keep women in the kitchen, shred the Bill of Rights, clear-cut the National Parks, and make us all flip burgers for a living, either. Maybe if both labels are equally discredited we can get back to discussing real issues.

BugMeNot.com

BugMeNot.com

BugMeNot.com is an online database of pre-registered "public" user IDs and passwords for Web sites requiring registration. This is the place to go if you just want to read a New York Times article without the Gray Lady tracking your reading habits. The site includes a bookmarklet and extensions for Firefox and Internet Explorer to streamline the process.

Travis County Green Party

Travis County Green Party meeting today. After being in a slump since the ballot access petition drive failed last summer, I think we're finally recovering some energy and looking ahead. The turnout was not huge, but there were new faces as well as some folks we haven't seen in a while returning. More later....

Good and evil companies

Maybe the difference between "good" and "evil" companies is precisely whether or not they exist for a purpose other than simply maximizing profit. That would explain why the founders' personal involvement makes such a huge difference and why the IPO and managerial professionalization so often seem to suck the soul out of a great company.

Testing....

First post, just to check it out....