Hey all!

Much like my little Nicholson parody video the other day (which has now had over 145,000 views on Youtube -- eek!), I must admit I had no idea how much my little four-panel graphic would be used and shared not only on this site, but as of now, many others.

Hey all!  Made this for you guys earlier today.  Enjoy!  :)

Every year around this time, I am quite conscious and appreciative of the media's attention on African-American history.  (I'm White, myself, but am in a multi-racial family and grew up in a Black community.)  We hear soaring historical speeches from civil rights leaders, watch interviews with friends and family of black pioneers who have passed on, read lengthy excerpts from W.E.B. Du Bois and other visionaries, and take a little notice of the contributions from those who, without whom, there would have been no road paved for the genius of their successors.

This February, however, I totally forgot it was Black History Month, until I happened to be chatting with a friend of mine who works for our largest newspaper here.  The conversation went something (heavily paraphrased from memory) along the lines of:

I posted a few polls near the end of last year which generally found about 25-30% of Kossacks saying they won't vote for Hillary Clinton in the general election if she's the nominee.  Whether those who claim that position are all going to follow through is, of course, up for debate, but I've always tried to preface the polls with "no, really -- don't exaggerate, it's an anonymous poll, just click the true answer".  

I realize, however, that I've never seen a well-clicked poll that asked the question not only of Hillary Clinton, but of Barack Obama as well (and which broke down the probs versus defs, which is significant.)

I have been an active member of this site for four years or so, and in that time, I've always been able to remain civil, promote discussion, ask controversial questions without offending, use my TU status for good instead of evil, and make (or at least attempt to make) a daily substantive contribution to the community.

Last night, after perhaps too many glasses of wine and waaaay too much anger building inside me as I was reading another 100 or so articles on Hillary Clinton, something rubbed me the wrong way in an upthread posting, and I snapped.

In early December, I wrote this diary detailing my strategy in voting for Ron Paul in Michigan.  I reasoned that, because Michigan's primary is open (but only the Republican side will count, after The Party(tm) stripped the Democratic side), I have the choice of either (1) not voting, (2) voting in a worthless Democratic primary, or (3) voting in a Republican primary where I could make a difference in who our opponent will be in 2008.  And voting for Ron Paul would piss off the Republican Party the most, because the more money he earns, and the more primary votes he wins, the more the Republicans have to spend out of their (weak) war chest to shut him up, counter his ads, and treat him seriously.  Helping Republicans lose money is a very valuable tool this election, and would certainly be a better strategy than staying home.

However.

Many months ago, I postulated that the DNC's rule that Michigan delegates wouldn't be counted would almost certainly be overturned at the actual convention.  At the time, Hillary was almost certainly going to win 40+ primary contests, and since Michigan wouldn't make any difference, there'd be no harm in going back on the ruling.  

However, I also noted (uneasily) that there was a second possible scenario that would be extraordinarily damaging to our party: if, for some reason, Clinton and Obama split the delegate count, and Michigan's votes would put Clinton over the top, but Obama would stay on top if the Michigan delegate ban held.  Again, at the time, this seemed unlikely with Hillary's "inevitability".  But now... well, there's several possible scenarios that this could mathematically happen.

The problem with 100% single-payer universal health care is that it requires a relatively healthy population, which we are not.  We take pride in our 1,400 calorie thickburgers and driving to the mailbox.  We likely use more prescription drugs per person than any other nation by a factor of five.  You can't compare the per-person costs of universal health care in, say, France, to what it would cost here.

How about something like this:

In a stunning setback for advocates of DailyKos.com's current handling of registration, hidden comments, and troll ratings, more than half of DailyKos regulars want to change the system, according to a recent online poll.  

The poll, "Should DailyKos become invite-only", was posted by longtime Kos fan and diarist "cartwrightdale", and received hundreds of votes from the community.  Opinions ranged from advocating an "invite-only" system, to closing registration entirely until 2009.  

This is a topic that comes up every once in a while, particularly after yet another popular collaborative blog turns to closed registration or invite-only.  It was most recently debated in an unrelated posting, and so I thought I'd ask it as a poll.

Currently, as we all know, Dailykos has an automated and open registration process, which allows individuals with any motivations to register (and, if banned, re-register over and over).  But it's generally thought that the benefits (a large and growing community with relatively diverse backgrounds and ideas) outweigh the pitfalls (having to constantly police trolls, and censor diaries which reflect poorly on the site and party.)  

I have it on good authority from the Obama campaign (my cousin's running a lot of his NH/Iowa outreach) that more damaging information is coming out about Hillary Clinton's past, specifically with regards to dogfighting in Arkansas.  The Obama camp was originally going to sit on the information, especially due to the age of the accusation, but the newly released "kindergarten essays" and other low blows from the Clinton camp has made Obama's group have to go back on the offensive.

First, a reminder of what dogfighting actually entails, courtesy of the Michigan State University College of Law:

Yes, it's true.  

In a little over a month, I have decided to walk into my polling place (a church, believe it or not) and pull a lever (actually, complete an incomplete arrow with a golf pencil) for Dr. Ron Paul for the Republican nomination for President.

"But Dale," you may cringe, especially my longtime readers, "what happened to your support for Obama?"

I posted this as an off-the-cuff comment in a YouTube open thread last night, based on my impressions of the candidates' debate performances, and it received enough kind kudos that I thought I'd expand it to a full diary entry.  

Enjoy!  :)

First of all, let me state unequivocally that I'm all for fresh faces, and I think some of our nation's best leaders haven't always had 30 years of politics under their belt.  But doesn't it bother anyone that the frontrunners, on both sides of the race, seem to be the candidates with the least amount of actual experience as an elected representative?  

Let's look at who's running:

Three months ago, I did a popular poll by request that tried to determine what percentage of Kos readers wouldn't actually vote for Hillary Clinton for President if she were to get the nomination of our party. Now, obviously, these aren't scientific polls, and so feel free to insert any applicable grains of salt here.  But I don't think they're worthless exercises either, and it's been a while since I've seen one.  At the very least, it'd be interesting to see if Hillary Clinton's support or opposition has increased since August.

First of all, congrats to Markos for scoring the tasty Newsweek opinion gig!

His announcement, though, intriguingly offers this little nugget:

But Newsweek is "balancing" me out with someone that should make heads on our side explode. Announcement on that name is still a couple of days off.

The way this is worded, I'm guessing Markos knows who his Republican counterpart will be, but isn't allowed to say.  (I'm also guessing that Kos wouldn't agree until he knew who the other side would be, as well, to assure he was pitted against someone of equal stature.)

So.... who?

A few years ago, homemade political commercials were relatively rare, still requiring a fairly significant investment in equipment, a high-bandwidth video host, etc.  Nowadays, not only are such commercials nearly ubiquitous on sites such as YouTube, they're often even encouraged by the candidates themselves.  Even my Michigan-based "Stop Devos" YouTube commercials got me thousands of views and hundreds of emails last year, and I didn't even promote them -- just dropped them on YouTube and waited for people to find them.  

The exciting thing is that anyone with a voice can share their thoughts, and with the internet video being "free", there's less a concern with who's paying for what, who approves what, etc.  (Whether this will end up being more problematic than its worth is debatable, but at least right now it seems a promising development for free speech.)

For example:

In the most recent (daily) "Gore's going to come in and save us at the last minute" diary, many posters yet again insisted that Gore will announce "when" he wins the Nobel Prize.  Everyone here tends to treat this possibility as a done deal.  

First of all, the idea that he's waiting to announce until the Nobel Prize is awarded is kind of offensive.  Are Gore supporters implying that his running for office is dependent on the outcome of the Prize?  What does one have to do with the other?  Is the implication that if he started campaigning now, and then didn't win the Nobel Prize, he'd have to drop out in shame?  How is that leadership?  I just don't get the logic.  

Second of all, there are nearly two hundred Nobel Prize nominees for 2007.  Anyone can be a nominee.  Everyone from Muhammad Ali to Rush Limbaugh is a nominee this year.  For all we know, Markos himself is a nominee.  Nominations are only secret if the nominator doesn't issue a press release.