[Cross Posted at VetVoice.com]

To the Senior Senator from Arizona:
  Apparently you don't read the diaries on Vetvoice. It's OK and I'm not at all surprised. You haven't been listening to the needs and concerns of this country's veterans for sometime now. I am writing you in response to your extremely troubling appearance last night on Jay Leno's program. When questioned on the number of homes you own (or really your wife), you dodged the question and again played the POW card. In case you missed some of the analysis of your answer on MSNBC, here it is:

I have never been tortured. But I have worked clinically with those who have, including U.S. POWs. I can tell you it breaks the mind and the body, the soul and the spirit, in a way that can never be forgotten.

Now John McCain cites his experience as a POW and torture victim as an anodyne to every mildly injurious political attack. While his painful experience as a POW matters in the history of the man, in our nation's history, what matters now is that McCain has betrayed that experience, and the lives of thousands he could both know and not know. In doing so, he also betrayed the ideals of American fair-play and justice, going back to George Washington (who forbid his revolutionary army to engage in torture, even if the British did). As everyone should know, those ideals were not realized fully, and we are still fighting for them today. But McCain has trampled them in the mud.

Cross Posted at Legal Schnauzer

The possibility that Republican presidential candidate John McCain, if elected, might reinstitute a military draft has become hot news lately.

Keith Olbermann devoted major time to the topic last Thursday and Friday on MSNBC's Countdown. The Keith O pieces were driven by McCain's answer to a woman's question at a town-hall campaign stop in New Mexico.

Here at Legal Schnauzer, this got us to thinking about the draft in larger terms--particularly terms that apply to the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

A strong case can be made that George W. Bush is both the worst and the dumbest president we've ever had. But bad, dumb people can teach us valuable lessons--in a "never again" kind of way.

The past few weeks have been filled with busy, busy days.  I have been to my 20th class reunion and I continue to do events around DC for the Obama4UnityBeatsMcCain slate that I am running on for the DC Democratic State Committee. Hell, I’ve even had a friend visit and I had the sheer pleasure of hanging out with UnionReview’s own Richard Negri one night last weekend.  In all of this, I’ve been thinking about women, unions and what exactly all of our stories really are and where they are.

This is probably due to the current negotiations with the WTU (AFT local 6) that I’ve been reporting on for longer than I’d like (seriously, sure looks like Fenty and Rhee are anti-worker in all this). It may have something to do with the recent election of Randi Weingarten, Antonia Cortese and Loretta Johnson at the American Federation of Teachers.

As I sit here charging my laptop at Google's fantastic "retreat" at the Big Tent, I'm still trying to take it all in.  Being among so many creative and talented bloggers both here and at Netroots Nation earlier this month is a truly humbling experience: there's nothing quite like the synergy of so many people all working, each in their own unique way, to advance the progressive cause, largely without institutional backing of any kind.

It feels, in a certain sense, like we've arrived.  The movement our network of creative and passionate individuals has created already seems to be just as powerful and influential as anything on the Right.  The Big Tent, after all, is the place to be in Denver this week, with top-notch panels and presentations and the best creative and online media networking opportunities anywhere.  We've helped elect a swatch of more and better Democrats from Jon Tester to Jim Webb, officially pushed Joe Lieberman out of the Democratic Party, and provided a bulwark that was instrumental in defeating the DLC wing of the Party in this year's primaries.

Greetings folks, the start of new week and thus we kick off another episode of Manufacturing Monday!  Never a dull moment when it comes to covering stuff that either goes into the products you buy, or the impact that that consumption leads to. Now originally, I had these other items on bio-fuels, hydrogen cars, China and oil, and a few other things.  But I see now that my section on the bailout of the US automakers is so big, that the whole thing is too long.  So, if it is OK with you, I will post those items tomorrow.

Everytime convention rolls around I begin to squirm. It is impossible for me to avoid the pre-convention hoopla if I'm going to stay informed on other topics, so I just grit my teeth and bear it, but it really sets my teeth on edge. Here's why:

This week much will be said about Sen. Barack Obama and his journey to  stand on the stage as the first African American presidential nominee. I was reminded of an article that spoke about the audacity of Barack Obama's candidacy called "Places Please."

Barack Obama is not the decedent from slaves. Unlike most black Americans he has a place in Africa that has a name that he can claim as his own. But he was born and raised an American, taking in all the benefits and disadvantages of being brown in a white world. He could have taken the easy road. He could have simply be a lawyer and live a quiet, nice, noble but unremarkable life. But like all people who are filled with an ambition burning hot inside, a mix of righteousness and ego, brilliance and manifest destiny, he reached for the heights and ascended, looked from his perch and rather than be content and satisfied as the second black senator to be elected from Illinois, he looked at his accomplishments and had the audacity to say, "More."

Who let you in here? Who do you think you are?

A series on trends in voter registration

In early August, the New York Times revealed that since 2005, there has been a major shift in party registration, with the Republicans losing ground to Democrats and to unaffiliated voters. But what caused these shifts? How large have they been in key (and not so key) states? Have there been any demographic shifts? How will they help (or hinder) the Democratic party's chances at victory this November?

The answer can be found below.

I'm going to spend less time on this one, since Alabama isn't important on the presidential level or on the state level at all; not this year. However, there are perhaps 3 competitive congressional district races.

Like Georgia, Alabama does not register voters by party, yet as a state covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, it, too, collects registration totals by race.

This is an e-mail letter I wrote to an old HS friend. He went to Nasheville to become a star and I moved to Olympia WA and became a professional do-gooder. We have both been moderately sucessful in our goals.  Thanks to the Internet we have just now regained contact after many years.  We are just now turning 60 this year.  Vietnam was our war. Peace and justice was, and still are, our cause.  The letter is a part of re-aquainting him with my life in these times.  Some of you may appreciate it.  If not that's OK too.  

Canada, Russia, Denmark, Norway and the United States are squaring off over 1.2 million square kilometers (460,000 square miles) of Arctic seabed, thought to hold 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas.

Experts estimate the ridge has ten billion tons of gas and oil deposits and significant sources of diamonds, gold, tin, manganese, nickel, lead and platinum.

<center></center>

A UN convention says none can claim jurisdiction over the Arctic seabed because the geological structure does not match the surrounding continental shelves.  

Putin disagrees.  Russian scientists have returned from a six-week mission on a nuclear ice-breaker to claim that the 1,220-mile long underwater Lomonosov Ridge is geologically linked to the Siberian continental platform - and similar in structure.

Good Afternoon Kossacks.

I hope today's post finds you all well. Apologies for not posting "The Week in Indigenous Peoples Rights" last week, I wasted three or four days trying to remember how many homes I own, and just couldn't get around to it (turns out the answer is none; turns out I rent an apartment).

Anyways, this week we'll be looking at what's going on in the Peruvian Amazon and West Papua.

First, an update on the study Oil, Biodiversity and Indigenous Peoples in the Western Amazon, that I wrote about a week ago Wednesday: In the first week since releasing the study, there have been about 200 news stories about it; from South Africa, to London, to Italy, Germany, Poland, Peru, Brazil,... Even Time is covering it! They've got a great interview with my co-author, Dr. Matt Finer, on their podcast.

Now, to this week's news.

Our usual host, plf515, was last seen intrepidly staggering into the vortex of a wormhole, but I can confirm for you that he did survive the journey since he just sent me back this message:

Obama's acceptance speech in Denver was awesome, but take up a collection for bail... The Kossacks there were one wild group! Next week's Math Mania was our best ever, too!

Fortunately for all of us, it appears that plf515 will be back next week, but his message got me thinking about two things: Cosmology and Groups.

UNfortunately for all of us, I'm not an expert on either topic, but I do love learning about both, so I figured that while plf515 prepares for us to catch up to him on the other side of the wormhole, I'd take over today's Math Mania and try to explain in a very basic way how the physics of the universe, called Cosmology, is connected to one of the most beautiful topics in modern mathematics, Group Theory.

I was volunteering at a community event benefiting my employer, at a small park plaza located downtown.  I don't generally go to public events like this if I can help it -- I dislike crowds.  But duty called, so I went.  It was a lovely, sunny, warm day.  I didn't have a lot to do during much of the day except just sit at a volunteers' hospitality table, so had time to read the book I brought with me at intervals, and I had almost unlimited time to just watch the goings-on around me.

Let's stop complaining that many voters make their decisions based on intuition and emotion instead of a laundry list of issues, and start using it.

Folks, we can slam our heads repeatedly against the (virtual) wall, bemoaning the fact that many who voted for George W. Bush either a) disagree with his policies or b) are harmed by his policies. Why did they do that? How could they be so "stupid"? Well, because gut feelings and emotions matter - and to many voters, they matter more than issues on a checklist.

You don't like that? You want people to be more like you? Then you're never going to run a successful campaign.

People make decisions in different ways. We're never going to change that. Let's stop with the "my way is better" attitude. Even if you think it is. You are never going to change the way an important slice of the American public (low-information swing/centrist voters) makes its decisions. Stop trying. Instead...

Why Protesters in Denver and Minneapolis will be Treated Like Terrorists
Crossposted from Huffington Post - Off the Bus

Demonstrators are descending on the national political conventions in Denver and Minneapolis to exercise their First Amendment rights to free speech; meanwhile government law enforcement, intelligence, and security agencies are planning to treat dissidents like potential terrorists because of a reliance on flawed research, hyperbolic assessments, and political bias.

Social science research into the handling of demonstrations at major events across the United States since the Seattle protests in 1999 reveals a pattern of distorted threat analysis and repeated police abuses. Just published is the book Policing Dissent by Luis A. Fernandez, with the subtitle Social Control and the Anti-Globalization Movement. It is the social control of radical political dissent that is at the heart of government political repression, and Fernandez joins a long line of analysts who explain how the erosion of civil liberties is always justified by fanning fears of violence, civil unrest, and terrorism.

Like many others, I had my own personal grief over losing one of Congress’ best and brightest this past week. But as I read the various articles online about her, I also noticed that Jones had recently signed up to become an organ donor. Stephanie Tubbs Jones may have had her voice silenced, but she will live on, through the most generous donation of her self.

Perhaps the reason I’ve been thinking about his is because I lost a dear friend (my best friend’s husband), to a sudden heart attack, in early December. Within hours of his passing, while his widow was still coming to grips with the sudden loss, the phone rang and an organ donation group was on the other end of the line, with the unenviable task of requesting Jay’s organs for transplant. It's not an easy job, but time is of the essence in these matters so they had to call. But they did it with great sensitivity and I know it did, in some way, give his wife comfort knowing that his death could do some good, helping those in need of organs.

And so will Jones. Follow me...

I support a New Group which has formed on the GOP side.

Composed of all of those millions who voted for Mike Huckabee in the recent primaries.  They are demanding R. E. S. P. E. C. T.

After all, there are a lot of people in this country who deny Evolution.  They deserve a hearing, don't they?  

There are a lot of people who voted to return women to their proper place. They must be given a voice, too.

There are a lot of sunny, funny people who have never had a chance to be President. They must all be allowed to pout, and whine until the media discovers a "split in the Republican Party".

There are many folks who lost a lot of weight and walk everyday to keep it off.  Why shouldn't they be given a major voice in Minneapolis?