Google Analytics is Really Cool

My friend Andy Ristaino told me about Google Analytics, a service which you 'plug in' to your website's code. You then get daily updates on how many people visited your site on a given day, from where they are viewing it from and so much more. In order to test it out, I asked my sister in South Africa to visit (though she told me she does a couple of times a week anyway) and I see someone from Argentina is reading, probably my friend Mateo. Thanks for reading everyone.

Who is Sarah Palin and Is She the Best The Republicans can Offer as Second in Command?

Ironic that McCain hammers Obama for having too little experience then picks Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate. Salon.com highlights Palin's qualifications for national office as:

Having served as governor of Alaska for less than two years -- and as mayor of a small town before that...

Four days ago I wrote about some of the odds of McCain not making it to the end of his term if elected president. So this former beauty queen will be the one to replace McCain if he checks out early. Ironic coming from the party who said Hillary couldn't be Commander-in-Chief because of being a woman.


And what exactly is her foreign policy experience, something the republican party has also hammered Obama for lacking?

She does share Republican values such as being a member of the NRA, a fondness for killing animals with guns, and being strongly against abortion, but what else do we know about this person?

Is he going after the stubborn Hillary fans who claim with will consider McCain over Obama?


In this BBC footage, Palin recently asked, "... What is it exactly the V.P. does everyday." Hope someone has told her by now.


This is from MoveOn.org:

• She was elected Alaska's governor a little over a year and a half ago. Her previous office was mayor of Wasilla, a small town outside Anchorage. She has no foreign policy experience.¹
  
• Palin is strongly anti-choice, opposing abortion even in the case of rape or incest.²
  
• She supported right-wing extremist Pat Buchanan for president in 2000. ³
  
• Palin thinks creationism should be taught in public schools.⁴
  
• She's doesn't think humans are the cause of climate change.⁵
  
• She's solidly in line with John McCain's "Big Oil first" energy policy. She's pushed hard for more oil drilling and says renewables won't be ready for years. She also sued the Bush administration for listing polar bears as an endangered species—she was worried it would interfere with more oil drilling in Alaska.⁶
• How closely did John McCain vet this choice? He met Sarah Palin once at a meeting. They spoke a second time, last Sunday, when he called her about being vice-president. Then he offered her the position.⁷

Sources:

1. "Sarah Palin," Wikipedia, Accessed August 29, 2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin

2. "McCain Selects Anti-Choice Sarah Palin as Running Mate," NARAL Pro-Choice America, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17515&id=13661-9815853-nTFE2Qx&t=1

3. "Sarah Palin, Buchananite," The Nation, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17736&id=13661-9815853-nTFE2Qx&t=2

4. "'Creation science' enters the race," Anchorage Daily News, October 27, 2006
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17737&id=13661-9815853-nTFE2Qx&t=3

5. "Palin buys climate denial PR spin—ignores science," Huffington Post, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17517&id=13661-9815853-nTFE2Qx&t=4

6. "McCain VP Pick Completes Shift to Bush Energy Policy," Sierra Club, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17518&id=13661-9815853-nTFE2Qx&t=5

"Choice of Palin Promises Failed Energy Policies of the Past," League of Conservation Voters, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17519&id=13661-9815853-nTFE2Qx&t=6

"Protecting polar bears gets in way of drilling for oil, says governor," The Times of London, May 23, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=17520&id=13661-9815853-nTFE2Qx&t=7

7 "McCain met Palin once before yesterday," MSNBC, August 29, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=21119&id=13661-9815853-nTFE2Qx&t=8

One Step Closer to True Equality in the USA

Last night the Democratic Party made history by nominating the first major-party African-American candidate for President, Barack Obama.

If anything, this decision gives me hope that over 500 years of European centric racism could be coming to an end in the USA. Won't end overnight but I feel that if Barak can be our president, we will see a light at the end of the tunnel. I've encountered way too many racists this year, some my own blood. Segregation continued in this country legally until the year I was born, 1967. This campaign gives me hope that we are turning a corner to realize Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream, similar to the dream of Ethiopean President Haile Selassie as illustrated in a speech to the UN in 1963:

That until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned: That until there are no longer first-class and second class citizens of any nation; That until the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes; That until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race; That until that day, the dream of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but never attained...

Assasination Attempt on Obama (Already?) or Racism Still Strong in America

This from the Huffington Post:

[An] update from CBS4 in Denver: "CBS4 has now learned at least four people are under arrest in connection with a possible plot to kill Barack Obama at his Thursday night acceptance speech in Denver. All are being held on either drug or weapons charges. CBS4 Investigator Brian Maass reported one of the suspects told authorities they were 'going to shoot Obama from a high vantage point using a ... rifle ... sighted at 750 yards.'

"Law enforcement sources tell Maass that one of the suspects 'was directly asked if they had come to Denver to kill Obama. He responded in the affirmative.'"

The rest of the story is here.

McCain and Heart Attack, Dementia & Alzheimers

This, from Democrats.com, is heavy but think about it logically and objectively. I have never played the 'age card' with McCain, thinking it petty, but this is worth considering:

McCain Owes America An Alzheimer's Test

While Ted Kennedy and Michelle Obama were rocking the Democratic convention in Denver, John McCain made his 13th appearance with Jay Leno to joke about his age.

But McCain's age is no joke. He will turn 72 on Friday and would be halfway to 73 if elected and sworn in on January 20. That would make him the oldest first-term President ever, two years older than Ronald Reagan. He has survived four skin cancers (melanomas), including one in 2000 that was classified as Stage IIa.

McCain is two years older than his father was when he died suddenly of a heart attack at 70. He is 11 years older than his grandfather was when he died suddenly of a heart attack at age 61.

The United States cannot afford the risk that McCain would die suddenly in the middle of an international crisis.

Nor can we afford the risk of dementia. 22% of Americans over 70 are affected by mild cognitive impairment, while 13% of Americans over 65 have Alzheimer's. Ronald Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer's at age 83, but early signs were evident during his first term. Britain's "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher developed dementia at age 75.

McCain has never had an Alzheimer's test, even though he has 6 of the 10 warning signs , including his inability to remember recent facts like the number of homes he owns, the $1M lawsuit he filed in 1990, or the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

John McCain owes America a thorough test for Alzheimer's and cognitive impairment long before Election Day.

Sign our petition to the Corporate Media:
http://www.democrats.com/mccain-owes-america-an-alzheimers-test

The Draft Reinstituted for McCain's Wars

This from AlterNet:

Today at a townhall meeting, an audience member praised Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) for his vow to "follow bin Laden to the gates of hell." After a long question about veterans' care, the questioner said she believed we needed to reinstate the draft, to which McCain seemed to readily agree:

QUESTIONER: If we don't reenact the draft, I don't think we'll have anyone to chase Bin Laden to the gates of hell.

[Appaluse]

MCCAIN: Ma'am, let me say that I don't disagree with anything you said.

In June, McCain said it would take an "all-out World War III" to make the draft necessary -- which seems to mean he'd consider it. In July 2006, when asked to react to Newt Gingrich's claim that "You'd have to say to yourself this is in fact World War III," McCain said, "I do [agree] to some extent."

People Should Not be Forced

The Bush administration has proposed stronger protections for health-care workers who refuse to participate in abortions, issuing a sweeping regulation that could also undercut access to birth-control pills and other forms of contraception (Wall Street Journal).

In an NPR interview, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said, "The basic idea is that people should not be forced to say or to do things they believe are morally wrong."

Does that include soldiers who don't want to kill Iraqis in an immoral and illegal war? The hypocrisy of this administration is staggering!!!

Jeremy Hinzman faces up to five years in prison because he refused to kill in Bush's war. Robin Long is now serving a jail term in Colorado. Support our soldiers, yeah right! Read about it at Democracy Now.

Does McCain Care About the Middle Class?

God is Money

If you believe in our Constitution and its first Amendment, and you agree with Thomas Jefferson that this amendment was created to create a "wall of separation" between church and state, then you may want to chime in on this MSNBC poll about the mention of God on our currency:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10103521/

Over 4.25 million votes have been counted and the people who are hell bent on converting every human in the world to the religion and God who hates homosexuals, inspired the Holy Inquisitions and who keeps making priests who sexually abuse children are winning (I know this sounds harsh- it is, but can anyone say it is not true. Believe me, I wish it wasn't).

God Lowers Gas Prices

I have been all over the world and I must say, The United States has some of the most...um... unique citizens in the world. This from the BBC:

Petrol pump pilgrims keep faith

By Greg Wood and Sandra Shmueli BBC News, New York

Rocky Twyman says God, not market forces, brought prices down

A prayer group in Washington DC is claiming the credit for the recent sharp drop in the US price of petrol.

Rocky Twyman, 59, a veteran community campaigner, started Pray At The Pump meetings at petrol stations in April.

Since then, the average price of what the US calls gasoline has fallen from more than $4 a gallon to $3.80.

"We don't have anybody else to turn to but God," Mr Twyman told the BBC. "We have to turn these problems over to God and not to man."

His first pilgrimage to the pump was prompted by fellow volunteers at the First Seventh Day Adventist Church in Petworth, a working-class neighbourhood of the US capital, who were struggling with higher gasoline prices.

He led them down the block to the local Shell gas station to pray. And over the months since then, he has held similar prayer meetings at pumps all over the US.

Prayer warriors

"We were down in Huntsville, Alabama. We finished praying," Mr Twyman said. "Immediately the owners came out and changed the gas prices. They brought it down. We had marvellous success down in St Louis, Missouri."

This week the group returned to the site of their first prayer meeting to celebrate. Singing "We shall overcome," they changed the words of the well-known hymn to "We'll have lower gas prices".

Mr Twyman is sceptical that market forces might be responsible for the lower prices. But he and his prayer warriors have changed their motoring habits.

"We believe not just in prayer - because we believe that faith without works is dead. So we've encouraged people to car-pool more and organise their days more, because it's a combination of faith with these other factors."

Pray At The Pump plans to build on its success and drive gasoline prices even lower. In the words of Rocky Twyman: "We just thank God for blessing us with small victories and we expect greater things to come."

On the other hand, this film looks interesting (click here to view trailer):

McCain Steals Music

image by Shannon Stapleton/ Reuters

Jackson Browne Sues McCain for Campaign Ad

The musician Jackson Browne is suing Senator McCain for using one of his songs in a campaign aid. A McCain ad criticizing Obama uses Browne’s 1977 song “Running on Empty.” Browne is well known for his support of progressive causes. He is suing McCain for copyright infringement.

From Democracy Now

Gas & Oil

Wind Has Less Waste than Nuclear

Missouri Town is Running on Vapor - And Thriving

by Frank Morris

[from NPR]

Four wind turbines provide energy to Rock Port's small community of 1,300 residents. BackStage/Flickr

Enlarge

Alice Kreit/NPR

All Things Considered, August 9, 2008 · As the United States grapples for ways to break its dependence on foreign energy sources, one tiny town in Missouri seems to have it figured out.

Rock Port, in the northwest tip of the state, has been on the decline for decades, and its population dwindles each year. But a walk up to the old cemetery shows something that has put the wind, literally, back in the town's sails: four massive turbines.

It's the first community in the United States to be powered completely by wind. The town's four turbines generate more electricity than Rock Port's 1,300 residents use — making the town truly energy-independent.

The U.S. Department of Energy wants to make wind energy the source of 20 percent of the country's electricity. Officials admit this could take decades. So how did Rock Port do it? Mayor Helen Jo Stevens says she still wonders "how did this ever happen to a little old town like ours?"

The turbines were the brainchild of resident Eric Chamberlain, who used to work at a mortuary. He says the idea came to him as he was driving to a funeral in northern Iowa. On the way, he passed some wind turbines and thought, "Why can't we do this? We've got wind." He began researching the technology and eventually started recording wind data.

When a wind power developer arrived in the region, Chamberlain made a strong case for why investors should consider Rock Port. Eventually, the John Deere tractor company leased some land and partnered with St. Louis-based Wind Capital Group to bring in Rock Port's wind turbines. There are more than 20 turbines located outside city limits, but the four located in Rock Port are wired to the power grid and provide residents with more power than they can use.

As Chamberlain looks at the turbines today, he says, "Did I ever think this would happen? Naw, not in a million years. ... This is beyond my imagination."

Raymond Henagan runs a small phone, cable and data storage company in Rock Port. He says that when Chamberlain told him about the wind-farm idea, he told him he was off his rocker.

But Henagan says he's seen how much the wind farm has helped protect the town from the rising costs of energy, and skyrocketing prices. "If we can stabilize some of these costs, we can provide good jobs for the future of these young people," he says.

Of course, the wind doesn't always blow in Rock Port, and on days when it's still, residents buy power off the grid. But on most days, the wind generates enough power for the city to export energy. Residents hope their status as the nation's first wind-powered city will help them stop exporting another valuable commodity: its people.

Frank Morris reports for member station KCUR.

Inflating Tires Does Beat Drilling

Coastal and Arctic National Wildlife Refuge drilling combined will save you six of these in 2030, that's a plan!?

I couldn't have said better than Bill Scher who wrote this on The Huffington Post:

Yes Conservatives, Inflated Tires Beats Coastal Drilling

Posted August 4, 2008 | 01:01 PM (EST)

The latest conservative lie -- regarding Sen. Barack Obama and fuel efficiency -- actually has a great amount of truth to it.

On Thursday, conservative radio host Sean Hannity claimed Obama said, "All you need to do is inflate your tires. That's all you need to do. If every American would join in this effort, of inflating one's tires, then it's all going to be fine. And we can still import 70% of our oil from Saudi Arabia. Just keep those tires inflated."

Conservatives -- lovers of childish mockery over substantive ideas -- later today are apparently planning to distribute tire gauges at an Obama energy event.

And earlier today on MSNBC's Morning Joe, conservative hack economist (who does not hold an economics degree) Larry Kudlow, a very loud advocate of coastal drilling, said of Obama's comments about tires, "That's not really much of a policy."

No, it's not. That was Obama's point.

Obama's actual comment last week was:

...we could save all the oil they're talking about getting off drilling, if everybody was just inflating their tires, and getting regular tune-ups. You could actually save just as much.

He was decidedly not saying "all you need to do" is inflate your ties, or "my entire energy policy" is inflating your tires.

(Obama has a much larger energy plan -- articulated in a sweeping speech today -- centered on investment in renewable energy and fuel efficiency technology. Similarly, it would not be fair to say Sen. John McCain's "entire" energy policy is coastal drilling, when he is also advocating loosening regulations on nuclear power and a contest to promote battery technology.)

Obama was observing that coastal drilling would save us so little oil and so little money even twenty years from now, that you can actually save more money immediately by doing "simple things" such as keeping your tires properly inflated.

Where did he get that crazy idea? From George Bush's Energy Department and Environmental Protection Agency. (hat tip: Get Energy Smart! Now!)

Their joint site fueleconomy.gov is loaded with fuel-saving, money-saving tips. Keep your tires properly inflated, for example, and you can save up to 12 cents a gallon.

Compare that immediate savings from that single tip, with what coastal and Arctic National Wildlife Refuge drilling combined would get you two decades from now: 6 cents a gallon.

And that's being generous, because Bush's Energy Department says we can't expect any impact on prices from coastal drilling until the year 2030.

In their knee-jerk mockery, conservatives are flying closer to the truth then they intend to.

Inflating your ties does not amount to an energy policy. It's just more of a policy than coastal drilling, since unlike drilling for a tiny amount of oil, it would at least save us some money now.

A real energy policy would provide us consumers with a energy choice besides buying huge amounts of increasingly expensive oil. Maybe if conservative Senators stopped filibustering every proposal that would help provide such choices, and force their Big Oil donors to face some competition, we could get somewhere.

Check out Campaign for America's Future Making Sense alerts on coastal drilling and gas prices for more.

Freedom Juice for Saudi Arabia

At Least Someone in Congress is Doing Their Job

Thanks to Jeff at Blogging for Kucinich for passing this along to me.

Paris Hilton for President

I have been receiving some of the most ridiculous videos attacking Barack Obama from conservative relatives of mine (NeoCons, not fiscal conservatives. Those are other relatives of mine). One went on and on about Barack's middle name, Hussein (hope none of these NeoCons drink Coors beer. It was invented by Adolph Coors). Is that the best these petty aggressors can do?

John McCain recently made a ludicrous attack advertisement comparing Obama to Paris Hilton. Guess McSame forgot that Paris Hilton's parents have donated a fair amount of money to his campaign. Now he has made another enemy.

Here is McCain's attack ad.

And lets remember, Obama is a 'celebrity' because the people like him. McCain tried to be a celebrity by making cameos in movies like Wedding Crashers and TV shows like 24.

This is the Candidate of the 'Family Values' Party?

John and Cindy McCain

In a Mail Online article By Sharon Churcher (Last updated at 1:45 AM on 08th June 2008), I learned a little about McCain's past that my conservative friends aren't talking much about. I believe this British newspaper, the second most popular in the UK, is tabloid like, so take this with a grain of salt. That said, this is shocking, even to someone like me who doesn't subscribe to the Family Values crap politicians love to spew in place of real issues.

Excerpts from the article:

McCain will present himself as a selfless, principled war hero whose campaign represents not so much a battle for the presidency of the United States, but a crusade to rescue the nation’s tarnished reputation.

McCain likes to illustrate his moral fibre by referring to his five years as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam. And to demonstrate his commitment to family values, the 71-year-old former US Navy pilot pays warm tribute to his beautiful blonde wife, Cindy, with whom he has four children.

But there is another Mrs McCain who casts a ghostly shadow over the Senator’s presidential campaign. She is seldom seen and rarely written about, despite being mother to McCain’s three eldest children.

[McCain’s first wife, Carol,] was a famous beauty and a successful swimwear model when they married in 1965.

She was the woman McCain dreamed of during his long incarceration and torture in Vietnam’s infamous ‘Hanoi Hilton’ prison and the woman who faithfully stayed at home looking after the children and waiting anxiously for news.

But when McCain returned to America in 1973 to a fanfare of publicity and a handshake from Richard Nixon, he discovered his wife had been disfigured in a terrible car crash three years earlier. Her car had skidded on icy roads into a telegraph pole on Christmas Eve, 1969. Her pelvis and one arm were shattered by the impact and she suffered massive internal injuries.

When Carol was discharged from hospital after six months of life-saving surgery, the prognosis was bleak. In order to save her legs, surgeons had been forced to cut away huge sections of shattered bone, taking with it her tall, willowy figure. She was confined to a wheelchair and was forced to use a catheter.

Carol McCain, John McCain's first wife

Through sheer hard work, Carol learned to walk again. But when John McCain came home from Vietnam, she had gained a lot of weight and bore little resemblance to her old self.

Today, she stands at just 5ft4in and still walks awkwardly, with a pronounced limp. Her body is held together by screws and metal plates and, at 70, her face is worn by wrinkles that speak of decades of silent suffering.

Some of McCain’s acquaintances are less forgiving, however. They portray the politician as a self-centred womaniser who effectively abandoned his crippled wife to ‘play the field’. They accuse him of finally settling on Cindy, a former rodeo beauty queen, for financial reasons.

He was shot down over Hanoi in October 1967 on his 23rd mission over North Vietnam and was badly beaten by an angry mob when he was pulled, half-drowned from a lake.

Over the next five-and-a-half years in the notorious Hoa Loa Prison he was regularly tortured and mistreated.

It was in 1969 that Carol went to spend the Christmas holiday – her third without McCain – at her parents’ home. After dinner, she left to drop off some presents at a friend’s house.

It wasn’t until some hours later that she was discovered, alone and in terrible pain, next to the wreckage of her car. She had been hurled through the windscreen.

After her first series of life-saving operations, Carol was told she may never walk again, but when doctors said they would try to get word to McCain about her injuries, she refused, insisting: ‘He’s got enough problems, I don’t want to tell him.’

H. Ross Perot, a billionaire Texas businessman, future presidential candidate and advocate of prisoners of war, paid for her medical care.

When McCain – his hair turned prematurely white and his body reduced to little more than a skeleton – was released in March 1973, he told reporters he was overjoyed to see Carol again.

But friends say privately he was ‘appalled’ by the change in her appearance. At first, though, he was kind, assuring her: ‘I don’t look so good myself. It’s fine.’

McCains’ marriage had begun to fray. ‘John started carousing and running around with women,’ said Robert Timberg.

McCain has acknowledged that he had girlfriends during this time, without going into details. Some friends blame his dissatisfaction with Carol, but others give some credence to her theory of a mid-life crisis.

In 1979 – while still married to Carol – he met Cindy at a cocktail party in Hawaii. Over the next six months he pursued her, flying around the country to see her. Then he began to push to end his marriage.

Meanwhile McCain moved to Arizona with his new bride immediately after their 1980 marriage. There, his new father-in-law gave him a job and introduced him to local businessmen and political powerbrokers who would smooth his passage to Washington via the House of Representatives and Senate.

And yet despite his popularity as a politician, there are those who won’t forget his treatment of his first wife.

Ted Sampley, who fought with US Special Forces in Vietnam and is now a leading campaigner for veterans’ rights, said: ‘I have been following John McCain’s career for nearly 20 years. I know him personally. There is something wrong with this guy and let me tell you what it is – deceit.

‘When he came home and saw that Carol was not the beauty he left behind, he started running around on her almost right away. Everybody around him knew it.

‘Eventually he met Cindy and she was young and beautiful and very wealthy. At that point McCain just dumped Carol for something he thought was better.

‘This is a guy who makes such a big deal about his character. He has no character. He is a fake. If there was any character in that first marriage, it all belonged to Carol.’

But Ross Perot, who paid her medical bills all those years ago, now believes that both Carol McCain and the American people have been taken in by a man who is unusually slick and cruel – even by the standards of modern politics.

‘McCain is the classic opportunist. He’s always reaching for attention and glory,’ he said.

‘After he came home, Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona. And the rest is history.’

John McCain with second wife, Cindy

McCain's Racism

US General Talks of Bush War Crimes

I receive forwards from a group of conservatives every day- many, many forwards. One thing I have learned is the fact that they love to quote military people. If a military person says something, it is close to the word of God, it can't be questioned.

Here is something retired Major General Antonio Mario Taguba of the United States Army has to say:

There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.

Found this in a great article on Alternet.org. Here is an excerpt (link to full article below):

The evidence confirming not only a deliberate policy of torture, but of conspiring in an illegal war of aggression and conducting a criminal occupation, continues to pile ever higher. Bush's own press secretary Scott McClellan has revealed in his book, What Happened, how deliberately the public was misled to foment the attack on Iraq. Philippe Sands' new book, Torture Team, has shown how the top legal and political leadership fought for a policy of torture -- circumventing and misleading top military officials to do so. Jane Mayer's The Dark Side, reveals that a secret report by the Red Cross -- given to the CIA and shared with President Bush and Condoleezza Rice -- found that U.S. interrogation methods are "categorically" torture and that the "abuse constituted war crimes, placing the highest officials in the U.S. government in jeopardy of being prosecuted."

Full article here.