Category Archives: Uncategorized

(Community Matters) So typically Bush-style Republican: talk about fiscal stewardship, take meaningless actions (such as opposing the bridge to no where only after its funding has been cut) and then personally feed at the trough. The Washington Post is now reporting how Palin and her family billed Alaskans for 312 days, (i.e., collecting the per diem intended to reimburse for lodging and meals while traveling on state business) while they were home in Wasilla. The governor’s husband and daughters charged Alaska $44,000 for their personal travel. story here

(Community Matters) I’d received this email via internet many times but hadn’t posted b/c no independent confirmation it was from a real neighbor. Now, several sources have verified its authenticity. Thanks Stephen Walls for sending the latest.

(Community Matters) Michael Mitchell and I were walking up S. Congress last night looking for a place to have dinner and talked about the parking lot just south of the Congress Avenue Baptist Church. Today, AAS reports on the boutique hotel being developed. Very cool for S. Congress. San Jose stays booked.

(Community Matters) Gotta love it

(Community Matters) From Washington Post/CNN media critic, Howie Kurtz:

McCain, with the addition of a rookie governor, is no longer running as the candidate of experience. Instead, he is trying to steal the “change” mantra from his Democratic rival, Barack Obama…

(Community Matters) Self-acknowledged homophobes may want to relocate here

(Community Matters) According to Nate Silver at 538:

Rasmussen has just released polling from five key swing states. When coupled with PPP‘s new poll of Michigan and SurveyUSA‘s new release from Virginia, we see a race that is relatively unchanged from the pre-convention period, but with incremental trends in different states that might portend changes in electoral strategy.

At a macro level, these numbers seem like basically good news for Obama, since the overall numbers in swing states haven’t moved much at all – just shifted around some from region to region. McCain is polling about 3 points better right now than he was at the pre-convention equilibrium. It’s possible that those 3 points are manifesting themselves mostly in states that were already very red. Maybe Obama will lose Idaho and Nebraska and Alabama by 30 points rather than 20, but that doesn’t help McCain very much electorally (an exception might be in a state like Indiana).

Going into the conventions, the race was trending to Barack Obama by roughly 1 point. At the height of his convention bounce early last week, Obama had moved into a 5-6 point lead, indicating a convention bounce of 4-5 points. Now, over the past weekend, the polling appears to have transitioned into a 2-3 point McCain lead, indicating movement of 7-8 points.

McCain’s bounce is probably now fully manifested. I think he might pick up one more point or so in the Gallup tracker tomorrow, as I show slightly stronger results for him on Sunday (+5.0) and Saturday (+7.2) than I do on Friday (+2.7). But I don’t know that he’s going to get much more than that without further, intervening events.

(Community Matters) It’s bold and it tells the truth

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(Community Matters) Just off phone with a friend who asked me – very innocently – why I just didn’t ask my independent friends how well their political decision making worked out for this country the last two times and if they might not consider trusting me this time rather than their own instincts. I don’t really see this as a productive approach, despite its logic.

(Community Matters) Thomas Friedman is usually provocative and often titillating. Today’s column is both. I agree we’ve been in a slow decline the last 8 years. Don’t agree we were in decline the previous eight. Also believe Obama’s emphasis on infrastructure investment is targeted exactly to the ills Friedman cites. I’m underwhelmed by the information on BOs website about education reform. Hope to learn more about who’s advising and their credentials.

(Community Matters) This article about Massey Energy effectively buying its personal West Virginia Supreme Court justice to throw out a major damage award against the company isn’t only troubling, it further evidences an insidious threat to America. Just yesterday I was in a nearly raised-voice discussion with a dear friend, member of the judiciary, who stands in strong opposition to even-close conflict of interest and fundraising despite the deck structured to make Texas judiciary members dependent on corporate and legal interests.

(Community Matters) ok, admittedly I find myself going back and forth between Google’s new browser, Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox. Google’s is in beta and they have some issues to work out.