Discounts for Netroots Nation available here

Mary Rickles, the director of marketing and media, sends me this (for you):

As an active member of the Texas Progressive Alliance, we hope you're making plans to join us July 17–20 in Austin for Netroots Nation 2008.

In less than six months, you'll connect with progressive candidates, elected officials and fellow activists while you participate in your choice of more than 100 workshops, panels and events.

For a limited time, Netroots Nation is offering a $50 discount to all TPA members who register by Friday, February 15. For just $325 -- $50 off the current rate and $125 off the full convention price of $450 -- you'll experience four days filled with all the panels, workshops, caucuses and socializing you can handle in your home state. The registration fee covers many of your meals, too.

Register now! Simply enter promo code "TPA" to take advantage of this special rate. This offer expires Friday, February 15 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific time.

As always, visit netrootsnation.org for convention updates. See you in Austin!

One FAQ: If you're reading this blog, then you're a "member" of the TPA. Now come on and join us.

Around the world with Chelsea Clinton

In the wake of MSNBC reporter David Schuster's cheeky question about the Clinton campaign "pimping out" the once and potentially future First Daughter, The Rude Pundit wants to know how much a night with Chelsea might be. Whatever the cost, I think I would have to at least consider paying it ... as long as voting for her mother wasn't included in the asking price:

But the fact remains that Hillary Clinton agreed to a debate on Fox "news" despite all the not-very-nice things said about Chelsea (not to mention the "incredibly offensive" things spewed by Fox about Bill and her constantly). And she threatened to bail on MSNBC's debate, refusing to accept Shuster's apology and even Keith Olbermann's prostration. (The debate was canceled after Barack Obama agreed to another one on CNN.)

That means that she leapt at Shuster's remark as a way of keeping sympathy for her and her family in the news, a distraction from Obama's primary/caucus sweep this weekend. She used this Chelsea situation as a way to kick start some desperately needed fundraising.

And that ... is pretty much the definition of pimping.

FISA: Better Democrats needed in the Senate

mcjoan:

Here's the bunch of Democrats who were willing to sell out your Constitutional rights to protect the telcos:

Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Evan Bayh (D-IN), Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Tim Johnson (D-SD), Herb Kohl (D-WI), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Mark Pryor (D-AR), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Ken Salazar (D-CO), Tom Carper (D-DE), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Jim Webb (D-VA), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Bill Nelson (D-FL), Kent Conrad (D-ND), and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)

Senators McCain and Obama voted nay and aye, respectively. Senator Clinton was not present, though she might be for final passage.

This group bought the "keep us safe" canard hook, line, and sinker. Bush, his Republicans, and their telco buddies were a stronger force than us on this one. On days like this, it's hard to remember that this is, as Howard Dean told us at Yearly Kos last summer, a long term project.

Paul Keil:

Speaking to a conference call of reporters this afternoon, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) said that, reflecting on the string of defeats in the Senate today, he thought the House was the best hope for stripping retroactive immunity from the final surveillance bill."We've lost every single battle we had on this bill [in the Senate].... We're not getting anywhere at all" he said. "The question now is can the House do better." ...

The Senate had "just sanctioned" the "single largest invasion of privacy in the history of the country," he said. When asked why he thought so many Dem senators had crossed over, he replied: "Unfortunately, those who are advocating this notion that you have to give up liberties in order to be more secure are apparently prevailing. They seem to be convincing people that you're at risk politically or we're at risk as a nation if we don't give up rights."

The fight shifts over to the House of Representatives, where John Conyers has just announced his opposition to telecom immunity. Contact your representative.

Ron Paul: prelude to a third-party run

Lots of empty seats on the McCain bandwagon:

Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, secured more major endorsements on Monday, including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and evangelical leader Gary Bauer. But there's one vote he shouldn't count on, from fellow presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul.

Paul, R-Lake Jackson, said he will not back McCain if he is the party's nominee unless the Arizona senator "has a lot of change of heart."

"I cannot support anybody with the foreign policy he advocates, you know, perpetual war. That is just so disturbing to me," Paul said Monday. "I think it's un-American, un-constitutional, immoral and not Republican."

Once Dr. No salts away Chris Peden in his Congressional primary, then he will turn his attention to the Libertarian Party's presidential selection process.

Just a hunch.

A maelstrom of conservative bullshit

Lookey here:

Che Guevara Flags in Obama's Houston office

First of all, you idiots, one of those is a Cuban flag with Che's photo on it, so you better get busy tieing Barack Obama to Fidel. Given that Castro and McCain are currently fussing with each other -- and that Castro is still alive, albeit barely -- you might get a little more outrage mileage outta that.

You just have to stand back and laugh sometimes when right-wing freaks get busy whipping themselves into a frenzy over their latest perceived Swift Boat opportunity. I thought the GOP meme was that they were to say nice things about Obama in order to convince Democrats to nominate him. So I guess that theory is out the window, since they're shooting this wad prematurely.

As with Obama's religion (Christian), his swearing-in (on a Bible) and his hand over his heart during the national anthem (once it was missing), the conservatives are drooling and wiggling like hungry bats on a cave wall, ready to swoosh out into the night and devour their weight in insects before returning at dawn to sleep upside down and add to the large pile of guano beneath them.

Since Republicans tend to know nothing about popular culture, let's enlighten (emphasis mine):

Despite the controversies, Guevara's status as a popular icon has continued throughout the world, leading commentators to speak of a global "cult of Che". A photograph of Guevara taken by photographer Alberto Korda^[164] has become one of the century's most ubiquitous images, and the portrait, transformed into a monochrome graphic, is reproduced endlessly on a vast array of merchandise, such as T-shirts, posters, cigarettes,^[165] coffee mugs, and baseball caps largely for profit. This fact led Argentine business analyst Martin Krauze to postulate that: “The admiration for El Che no longer extends to his politics and ideology. It’s a romantic idea of one man going to battle against the windmills, he’s a Quixote.” While British journalist Sean O’Hagan has described Che as “more Lennon than Lenin”. Taking the opposite hypothesis, Mexican commentator and Che Biographer Jorge Castaneda has proclaimed that: “Che can be found just where he belongs in the niches reserved for cultural icons, for symbols of social uprisings that filter down deep into the soil of society.” ^[166] The saying "Viva la revolucion!" has also become very popular and synonymous with Guevara.^[167][168] In North America, Western Europe and many regions outside Latin America, the image had been likened to a global brand, long since shedding its ideological or political connotations, and the obsession with Guevara has been dismissed by some as merely "adolescent revolutionary romanticism".^[134]

Shorter Wiki: hanging a banner of Che Guevara today is sort of like wearing a corporate logo polo. You morons.

Update: Douchebag Robbie has more of the typical Republican "outrage". The Chron's city hall blog deviates from their usual topic to cover the "flap".

90,000 and 150,000

This little corner of the Intertubes reached those milestones in visits and page views in the past few hours (click the Sitemeter button at the very bottom if you are ever interested in the traffic here). I don't recall precisely when I began to track the number of clicks, but it was long after November of 2004, when I began to blog in earnest.

This shop opened for business in November of 2002, but it was a false start; it jumped up again two years later and stuck (if you're ever interested in knowing what I was saying a few years ago, the old postings are archived by month at the end of the right sidebar. Don't count on the links working, though). That chronology puts me up there in age with Web daddies like Kuffner, who makes a point of saying his is the oldest continuously published blog in Texas. It is. Charles is also better than me at a few other things, like procreating, but that's a digression.

Thank you, dear reader, very much for visiting and commenting here the past few years.

Some of my prized blog brethren have fallen by the wayside during that time: Media Whores Online was a particular source of early inspiration, the cessation of Billmon was deeply felt, and recently norbizness gave it up. Some, like my very good friend Prairie Weather, take a break and renew themselves, something I have also managed a couple a times. It makes me sad when people with so much talent and insight suddenly lose interest, while a no-account hack like me (and virtually every single conservative blogger I have ever found) continues to soldier on.

The one best thing I have always managed to do is find good writing or funny pictures and share them here, and occasionally think of something approaching profound to say. I expect I will continue to do that for as long as Uncle Sam and my advancing Agent Smith Syndrome allow me to.

Onward.