Category Archives: Uncategorized

(Community Matters) Thornton on ULTV’s here

(Community Matters) Vetting now?

(Community Matters) 538’s Nate Silver on Gov Palin’s positions on some burning issues – Evolution, Global Warming, Hate Crimes, Abortion and Sex Education here

(Community Matters) So, first, can I say for a governor, from afar, I sorta admire Palin and her rise. I bet she’d be a hoot to share a few beers with, even a boiler maker or two. A PTA mom of 5 becomes activist, becomes mayor of a township, recently becomes governor of a 670,000 population state. The U of Idaho undergrad, Miss Alaska runner-up, Elk hunter obviously a bit scrappy, though perhaps a bit too so given the on-going trooper investigation. Nevertheless, an example of boot-strap independence and success in a state that prizes these virtues more than anything else. Too bad the McCain campaign has been distorting her position on the Road to Nowhere and her national defense experience overseeing Alaska’s national guard. This weakens her credibility as a say-it-like-it-is independent.

As a vice presidential candidate? This says so much more about McCain than it does about Sarah Palin. It reminds us who McCain is – the privileged grandson and son of Admirals, a near very last in his class Naval Academy graduate who taunted authority and surely would have been expelled except for his legacy status, a courageous fighter pilot (a la Tom Cruise who would repeatedly buzz the tower despite the rules) who served our country, and the rascal who still bets big, imagines himself invincible and routinely goes for the long shot. Problem is, his daddy and granddaddy were his backstop as a kid and young adult. Cindy’s hundreds of millions have been his backstop as a Senator. Our country and this world are the backstop if he becomes our president. And, we’ve just experienced GW who’s so close to McCain in pedigree, perspective and temperament that four more years resonates more true than most know. Can we risk relying once again on a C/D student who’s succeeded on the legacy and millions of his family & friends, shoots from the hip (or what he feels in his soul) and shuts down all who disagree with his instincts?

I do not agree with those who see Palin’s selection as a play for Hillary delegates. McCain is not dumb (intellectually lazy perhaps, but not dumb), nor are the Republican operatives who won the last two presidential elections. This is a play to the Republican base. There was little intensity to (i.e., enthusiasm for) supporting McCain from the conservative religious base. An LA Times/Bloomberg poll measured enthusiasm for McCain at only 45% versus 81% for Obama. McCain just firmed up his base in a way that’s escaping most Obama fans. Palin is red meat to a lumberjack stuck in Berkley for two weeks – creationism, anti-choice and gun rights, a pragmatist who’s dogmatically socially conservative. Admittedly, this is a Hail Mary play but most of us have been looking toward the wrong goal post while McCain sailed this one successfully into the end zone. Whether or not they can add another 4 percent of voters to existing supporters in order to win is the million dollar question, but the campaign knew they were going to lose as everything stood and if they didn’t firm up the base.

Qualified? Even the talking heads didn’t believe themselves while hitting the airwaves yesterday. Fred Thompson (come on guys, really the proxy you’re looking for?) was obviously reading his campaign prepared talking points. Giuliani’s citation of decision making as mayor of a 6,000+ township about as flat as his C notes. Cindy McCain noting that Palin lives so close to Russia doesn’t really merit debate. Alaska’s own Maj. Gen. Craig Campbell, the adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard, notes that neither he nor Gov Palin have any say nor even visibility of the Guard’s national security activities.

Troopergate, Mommygate and Bridge-to-Nowhere-gate suggest that McCain overruled the more seasoned advisors and bypassed the usual vetting process. Again, his shoot from the hip, daddy admiral, granddaddy admiral & Cindy has my back mentality de ja vu of 43’s gut feel and taunts to come and get me. In the end, this is what’s likely to tank his campaign as more news breaks and/or voters assess his competence to make the big decisions.

That Alaska State Senate President Lyda Green (R), doesn’t consider Palin prepared to be governor much less vice president or president doesn’t add to any bona fides.

I haven’t figured out if party loyalty really blinds supporters when comparing Sarah’s experience to Barack’s or if they’re stifling grins. Come on, Barack was Law Review President at Harvard, a grassroots organizer in Chicago, a successful attorney and constitutional scholar, an entrepreneur (he’s made millions with his books), a successful state senator who authored bills on healthcare and ethics and has been a US Senator for nearly four years. Executive management? Who has put together and run as successful a political campaign (truly a business enterprise) employing 2,400 people, raising as much money and avoiding infighting? Giuliani’s right to comment on decision making all of a sudden comes to mind, doesn’t it?

The right’s red meat embrace of Palin as second chair to a 72-year old candidate for president who’s already suffered two bouts of cancer suggests loyalty and discipline in doctrine prioritizes over competence. Aren’t these the criteria that got us Michael Brown as head of FEMA?

Bush’s former speechwriter/columnist David Frum says, “So this is the future of the Republican party you are looking at: a future in which national security has bumped down the list of priorities behind abortion politics, gender politics, and energy politics. Ms. Palin is a bold pick, and probably a shrewd one. It’s not nearly so clear that she is a responsible pick, or a wise one.”

I didn’t understand nor could I explain to foreign friends how our country elected GW to a second term. The right’s embrace of Palin suggests it wasn’t an aberration.

(Community Matters) Sept 25, good gosh, it’s shaping up big. First it’s breakfast at DLA Piper‘s quarterly Venture Pipeline breakfast, then Greenlight’s Crossroads Conference all day. Austin Ventures is co-sponsoring the bash for Tech Crunch that early evening which I’ve promised to attend, Steven’s a guest speaker at the Headliner’s for McGinnis Lochridge’s annual Engaging Conversations dinner, this year benefitting People’s Community Clinic, and we’re planning to see David Brynes at the Paramount. If the Warren Buffett fundraiser for Obama being rescheduled is set for this date, I’m toast.

(Community Matters) yikes, University of Nebraska wrestlers suspended from team for posing nude on Fratmentv.com. silly boys NSFW

(Community Matters) Wanna know what they think?

AP- Military donations favor Obama

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. soldiers have donated more presidential campaign money to Democrat Barack Obama than to Republican John McCain, a reversal of previous campaigns in which military donations tended to favor GOP White House hopefuls, a nonpartisan group reported Thursday.

Troops serving abroad have given nearly six times as much money to Obama’s presidential campaign as they have to McCain’s, the Center for Responsive Politics said.

The results also are striking because they favored Obama, who never has served in the military. McCain meanwhile, is a decorated war veteran who spent nearly five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. The Arizona senator graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and had a 22-year career as a naval aviator.

Obama has opposed the war in Iraq and says he would withdraw combat troops within 16 months. McCain has been a steadfast supporter of the war, saying he would withdraw the troops only when conditions on the ground warrant it.

“Obama will work tirelessly to uphold this nation’s sacred trust with its veterans, to ensure they are not forgotten after they return home and he will provide our troops with the leadership they deserve, as well as the support they and their families need,” Obama spokesman Nick Shapiro said.

McCain’s campaign played down the significance of the donations. “John McCain has been endorsed by more retired admirals and generals than Barack Obama has military donors,” McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb said in a statement. “We feel confident that many U.S. troops stationed overseas will support John McCain in the election this fall, but we suspect most are too busy doing the important work of defending this country than to make political contributions,” Goldfarb said. The report tracked donations of $200 or more. It found that 859 members of the military donated a total of $335,536 to Obama. McCain received $280,513 from 558 military donors. Among soldiers serving overseas at the time of their donations, 134 gave a total of $60,642 to Obama while 26 gave a total of $10,665 to McCain. That was less than the amount received by Republican Ron Paul, who collected $45,512 from 99 soldiers serving abroad, the report said.

(Community Matters) My friend Bryan Jones returning from San Francisco just shot me this pic of my gift.

(Community Matters) My response to the Burnt Orange Report’s posting about Texas Monthly’s Paul Burka’s “disappointment” in Obama’s acceptance speech.

Give me a break. What did anyone expect from Burka? He was a Bush enthusiast – “He’s pretty effective up close,” “He got good people around him, and off we went.” The Austin Chronicle called Burka one of Bush’s biggest fans in the press core. So, my point being, despite several good pieces, this guy is cooped by the good ol’ boy network. He’s seduced by the power he purports to write on, and as a longtime insider confuses managed access with being part of the network. The good ol’ boy network and established power (be it Democrat or GOP, whether Jesse Jackson, Bill Clinton, James Dobson, Karl Rove or Mitch McConnell) ain’t happy about the the newbie wrestling control.

(Community Matters) Steven woke up thinking about Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s 1978 commencement address to Harvard. I had to look it up:

Excerpt of certain lines:

Relations with the former colonial world now have turned into their opposite and the Western world often goes to extremes of obsequiousness, but it is difficult yet to estimate the total size of the bill which former colonial countries will present to the West, and it is difficult to predict whether the surrender not only of its last colonies, but of everything it owns will be sufficient for the West to foot the bill.

[a decline in courage] to explain how realistic, reasonable as well as intellectually and even morally warranted it is to base state policies on weakness and cowardice. Should one point out that from ancient times decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end?

Even biology knows that habitual extreme safety and well-being are not advantageous for a living organism. Today, well-being in the life of Western society has begun to reveal its pernicious mask.

A society which is based on the letter of the law and never reaches any higher is taking very scarce advantage of the high level of human possibilities.

It is time, in the West, to defend not so much human rights as human obligations.

Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic disease of the 20th century and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press. In-depth analysis of a problem is anathema to the press. Such as it is, however, the press has become the greatest power within the Western countries, more powerful than the legislature, the executive and the judiciary.

There is a dangerous tendency to form a herd, shutting off successful development. I have received letters in America from highly intelligent persons, maybe a teacher in a faraway small college who could do much for the renewal and salvation of his country, but his country cannot hear him because the media are not interested in him.

Having experienced applied socialism in a country where the alternative has been realized, I certainly will not speak for it. The well-known Soviet mathematician Shafarevich, a member of the Soviet Academy of Science, has written a brilliant book under the title Socialism; it is a profound analysis showing that socialism of any type and shade leads to a total destruction of the human spirit and to a leveling of mankind into death.

A fact which cannot be disputed is the weakening of human beings in the West while in the East they are becoming firmer and stronger. Six decades for our people and three decades for the people of Eastern Europe; during that time we have been through a spiritual training far in advance of Western experience. Life’s complexity and mortal weight have produced stronger, deeper and more interesting characters than those produced by standardized Western well-being.

The Western way of life is less and less likely to become the leading model.

And yet — no weapons, no matter how powerful, can help the West until it overcomes its loss of willpower. In a state of psychological weakness, weapons become a burden for the capitulating side. Facing such a danger, with such historical values in your past, at such a high level of realization of freedom and apparently of devotion to freedom, how is it possible to lose to such an extent the will to defend oneself?

a total liberation occurred from the moral heritage of Christian centuries with their great reserves of mercy and sacrifice. State systems were becoming increasingly and totally materialistic. The West ended up by truly enforcing human rights, sometimes even excessively, but man’s sense of responsibility to God and society grew dimmer and dimmer.

There is a disaster, however, which has already been under way for quite some time. I am referring to the calamity of a despiritualized and irreligious humanistic consciousness.

If the world has not come to its end, it has approached a major turn in history, equal in importance to the turn from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. It will exact from us a spiritual upsurge, we shall have to rise to a new height of vision, to a new level of life where our physical nature will not be cursed as in the Middle Ages, but, even more importantly, our spiritual being will not be trampled upon as in the Modern era.

(Community Matters) Praying something will deflect Gustav off its path toward New Orleans.

We’ve topped off our gas tanks and are cutting our Houston visit short.

(Community Matters) from Editor & Publisher

Among all those surveyed, 35% call Obama’s speech at Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium Thursday night excellent, 23% good, 15% “just OK,” 3% poor and 4% “terrible.” Sixteen percent say they didn’t see it and 14% have no opinion. That’s higher than the ratings for acceptance speeches by President Bush and Democrat John Kerry in 2004, by Bush and Democrat Al Gore in 2000 and by Republican Bob Dole in 1996.

Asked about the Democratic convention’s impact, 43% say it makes them more likely to vote for Obama, 29% less likely. Nineteen percent say it won’t make a difference.