Below is a list of the Top 12 contributors to the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign that took away marriage equality in California. Click on the names for more information.
The bill also would increase the borrowing authority for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to $100 billion from $30 billion, a move that will save banks billions of dollars by reducing the extra premiums that they would have had to pay to shore up the deposit insurance fund.
The new Senate bill does not include additional money to aid mortgage borrowers, but it does draw $2.3 billion from the Treasury’s $700 billion financial bailout fund for various provisions.
This is a joke:
Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the banking committee, said at a news conference after the vote. “The bill does other things, but certainly, a major target is to deal with peoples’ housing issues and try to stem the tide.”
Another $70,000,000,000.00 giveaway to the banks and measly 2.3 Billion dollars taken from the already pissed away 700 billion is about helping homeowners? And no cramdown either.
Note to the NY Times and Sen. Chris Dodd: A fine fuck you to you two, too!
The little pieces of nothings that I have done pale in comparison to some of the greats out there. The amount of time that I have to put into doing just a crappy photoshop amazes me and has given me an even greater appreciation for what some these artists do. Some of the Bloggers that I read regularly (near daily, If I have the time) are darned good at snark, humor and playing with internet scissors.
I have 4 kids but I am going to introduce you to my youngest daughter (Connecticut Kid3 - she is 5) in a video I took a few months ago... I figured that since dickday has sound, well, now he can enjoy video:
I think she may turn out to be just like Daddy...
And I hope that this was meaningless enough of a post to satisfy my debt to dickday...
What an example of skewed priorities. Mayor Bloomberg raised two taxes to ensure there will be 500 new cops on the streets of New York this year. There are 5.3 police officers for every 1,000 New Yorkers but there is only one World of Darkness and many of the inhabitants are endangered species. Thanks to Bloomberg's thirty-three percent cut in city funding to the zoo, children will no longer learn that "when the sun goes down most of the world's animals wake up."
...snip...
Why does the zoo deserve special treatment in these harsh times? In a city that claims there is no money left for adequate mass transportation or even food stamps for that matter asking for special consideration for a living museum may seem unreasonable but the zoo preforms a far more important service than the storage of a few animals. They are devoted to educating generations that will understand why we should make our responsibility to endangered species a priority and work to protect wildlife.
A big reason New York is the number one city on the planet is its cultural institutions. Those institutions, including the Bronx Zoo and New York Aquarium, provide:
a top visitor destination
education for millions of children
employment for New Yorkers, and
vital support for the New York City economy
You were the difference in helping our institutions get their State funding restored-but we still need your help with City funding! This is a critical time to make your voice heard during the budget process.
Just note what Sanders says near the end about the fact that it is Democratic party members that want to make it a 60 vote healthcare debate virtually guaranteeing to keep the most conservative Democratic party members in conjunction with the near extinct gopasaurs in the right wing in the drivers seat on the healthcare debate. Via PNHP:
Our last weekend was a great success. We shut down fax machines in the offices of Sen. Baucus, Rep. Pelosi (Washington and DC offices) and the White House. We sent over 7000 faxes in those three days.
it's time to do this again, because single payer is still being ignored at this critical time. The Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Sen. Baucus, is holding 'roundtable hearings' in the next week to hear about health reform. Guess what. Not only is there no single payer advocate invited to testify -- there has not even been an invitation to a doctor!!! Donna Smith tells me that the only medical person testifying is a nurse from AARP; we know what she is shilling for -- more overpriced insurance policies AARP can sell to rip off seniors with. Unbelievable!!
So let's give them a pile of faxes to count.Send yours today. It's Free. It's Easy. That makes it Free and Easy. Just put your name, your email, where you are from and any comment you like, then hit the SEND YOUR FAX NOW button. If you like, you can send one to each of the Senators on the list. Have fun and let's see how many fax machines crash this weekend.
Just a reminder, from the archives, concerning what a big part of Blogging is all about. Also, it is a reminder that every day is Blogroll Amnesty Day:
"Speaking of Jon Swift, the start of 2008 seems like a good time to have another Blogroll Amnesty Day. If you're not on my blogroll, and I'm on yours, leave me a link below and I'll add you (note: racists, creationists, and flat-out weirdos won't be accepted). Instructions below the fold.
Please put your blog name on one line, and the url on the second line, like so:
Mike the Mad Biologist http://scienceblogs.com/mikethemadbiologist/
Same goes for this Blog. If I am on your Blogroll and you notice that you are not on mine, tell me! I will fix it. Heck... Add me to yours and I will add you to mine. Just drop a note in comments here.
For me, it doesn't matter whether you are covering local Connecticut stuff, national politics, and or pretty much anything else. And if you click around you should be able to get a link from Mike, John Swift and skippy as well as from here! Four Blogroll links just for being astute enough to add 4 links from your Blogroll... Does it get any better or easier than that? [ed. note: Of course, for the cost of a few comments once in awhile you might be more likely to get links?]
"and who are we to limit political discourse diversity? what's going on here? it's as if the major blogs are trying to emulate the democrats in washington who suddenly forget about their constituents.
(ok, it's not. our metaphors suck tonight. but we're pissed. so cut us some slack.)
ergo, we here at skippy are planning to retaliate by offering real blog amnesty. and here's how it goes:
many smaller blogs link to skippy for one or more of a few reasons: out of politeness, out of a hope that we might notice them and link back, or simply out of the imitation of what it takes to make a good blog. it's the second reason that interests us (we really should have put it as the last reason to be more clear with sentence structure (on the other hand, using less parenthetical phrases in a paragraph would go a long way towards grammatical clarity (too late now))).
to wit: any blog that has linked to skippy and has not received a reciprocal blogroll link will now be included on our roll! all you have to do is notify us in our comments section or email us, and we will happily include you! that will show those big shot elitists too good for the little guy blogs! ha!"
At a time when the bigger Blogs need to be doing more to help build the left community some are, and some aren't. I find it ironic that I posted just last week on Chris Bowers argument that we need to link more effectively:
If everyone on the left works a little harder on this we can turn the tides on on the Google Wars and win. We have already made a lot of inroads since this 2004 picture:
The graphs represent the aggregate linkage going on leading up to the 2004 election. Reds (them) are the Republican bloggers, and Blues (us) are the Democratic bloggers. The full expanation of the graphs particulars are on page 9 of the PDF paper. Basically, the first graph connects dots (blogs) when there is strong linkage between them (+25 during the period), the second one where there is less stronger linkage (+5), and they've a 3rd map that includes all linkage that I've not included.
Between blogs then (not taking into consideration that diaries on #8DailyKos and #17MyDD serve to allow massive coordiantion and spreading of message), there's just a lot more coordination through linking among Republican than there has been with Democratic bloggers, at least on the surface of particular URL's. The other interesting thing I noted was that the blog by George Bush's campaign didn't even make the top 40-- now that's pitiful.
We were less coordinated in '04. But in '06 we did little things a little better. I am sure the more recent graphs would look a lot better. But you know that we can still keep on improving on this.
Remember that every time you link to any site you are, over time, creating a kind of GOOGLEBOMB effect on that site when it comes to site rankings, search results, etc.. Tagging and choice of words that are used to link are important in these cumulitive effects as well.
"We innovate more than you, we hired people to help us, and because we did that there is no place for you lone bloggers anymore -- because WE decide who makes it and who doesn't."
Oh, you really have to read this self-congratulatory drivel to believe it. It's truly amazing to see one blogger fellating the entire Big Name Blogosphere in one post, while at the same time consigning the rest of us to the ranks of the MySpacers.
Kool Kidz Klub indeed.
It's funny how Bowers uses a quote by Jeffrey Feldman to illustrate his point, because as I've mentioned before, I had a very nice conversation about blogging just last week with Mr. Feldman, who seems to be in no way a blog snob. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised to see that there is at least one Big Name Blogger who isn't puffed up with his own self-importance.
But with Kos and Atrios making a big show about "culling the blogroll", and Chris Bowers playing "Mine's Bigger" with the rest of the blogosphere, is this really what it's come to? Is this the Revenge of the Nerds come to fruition? Is this the guys who DIDN'T get laid on prom night finally staking their claim to coolness?
If so, are we going to sit by and take it? Are we going to just toil away while guys like Atrios and Kos and Chris Bowers define the rules and brand the rest of us as useless?
I adopted this policy in a spirit of both self-interest and altruism. In the blogosphere links are like capital. By offering links to others, others would be more inclined to offer links to me. But I am also very grateful to those who helped me out by throwing a link my way or adding me to their blogroll when I was just starting out. Now that I am a Large Mammal, according the Truth Laid Bear Ecosystem, I have tried to return the favor by helping out those further down the food chain.
Links are capital! It is the foundation of bringing views from fellow bloggers out of obscurity and into the top of search engine results. And just how much does it cost any blogger to spend some of this valuable capital?
ZIP. Zilch. Zero dollars.
Not even one penny to use the most effective marketing tool that Blogtopia has to offer.
All you have to do is put a few seconds into the act of cut'n'paste into your Blogroll or into a post... And you make a huge difference for everyone in our fight.
We should all work together to fight the good progressive fight and not be so critical in terms of other people's sites. I read CTBlue, Ed's Daily Rant, CT Local Politics, and the watch sites everyday and I learn something new from all of those guys which I incorporate into my site and that's the way it should be. Learn something from me and I learn something from you.
2006 is going to be a HUGE election year and Connecticut will be ground zero in terms of who controls Congress (2nd, 4th 5th district races). The faster we can all work to get this site up to full-speed, the more national attention it will receive.
He also called me out for not having links to his sites... Which I quickly fixed. lol
2006 is behind us but there are still a lot of common causes that we all share, and we can all help each other in achieving our goals. Linking is the first, easiest AND cheapest way to start.
For more background on all of this: Boston Joe has a Meta diary up x-posted at BooTrib and at MLW covering a bit more of this Meta discussion in a thoughtful way. Both have generated a lot of comments. I usually hate Meta... But this topic is the foundation of what Blogging is all about.
We can do better than we have been doing. And if we keep building on what we already have our numbers (and the fact that we deal in reality) will easily overcome the right wing echo chamber's lies and propaganda.
Start the new year off kicking Blogtopia (y!sctp) up a notch! BAM!
[update] Many Bloggers chose to participate in Blogroll Amnesty Day, but did it work?
Rotus correctly deduced that Technorati and the like don’t recognize blogrolls when they calculate how many times your blog has been linked to. They do count if the links are in a post so, like Rotus, I’m going to make a post of our blogroll so everyone can get a Technorati hit. It is alphabetical and leaves out the retailers.
As always, we have an open blogroll policy so if you want on, drop us a line in the comments. Blogroll after the jump:
this year our partner in this endeavor, jon swift, will join us in celebrating this blogtopian-wide holiday all next weekend beginning on saturday.
update: we will officially start on saturday, jan. 31. the original blogroll amnesty day is february 3, but we're calling for a four-day weekend! huzzah!
and may we stop all the stupid jokes right here, right now: yes, there are blogs smaller than yours, no matter who you are.
mas update: ok, so we can't even stop the jokes before they start. ergo, we will ammend the parameters: if you really don't believe there are blogs smaller than yours, then in lieu of making the stupid joke that there aren't any, ha ha, please link to five blogs with traffic equivalent to yours (or in the same ball park). as long as they represent new voices (new to your readers, at least), you will have satisfied the requirement. just please don't do the stupid joke!!
The moral of the story? Link up, link sideways, link down... And never trust a guy like me anywhere near your knickers...
blogrollamnestydaysmall.jpg. My good friends Skippy and Jon Swift are calling on bloggers to join in and celebrate Blogroll Amnesty day this weekend: today marks the three-day weekendcelebration blog-burst of bad, or blogroll amnesty ...
Brewed by Pamela Leaveyat February 02, 2008 3:40 PM
blogroll_amnesty_day_cake.jpg. About the only thing besides a martini-soaked foot massage from Bjorn the Houseboy that can get me out of bed when I’m not feeling well is a modest request from the very modest Mr. ...
Brewed by Myrna the Minxat February 02, 2008 1:52 AM
the number of blogs celebrating the diversity of the smaller sites is growing! our favorite crankpot, maru, over at wtf is it now???; liquid daddy at zippidy doo da; chuck at chuck for...; david at the art of peace; ...
From the day I started this modest blog I have tried to follow one simple rule, the Golden Rule of Blogging: Blog unto others as you would have them blog unto you. I don't call people nasty names because I don't like being called nasty ...
stephen herron at drinking liberally in new milford reminds us that february 3 is the first anniversary of blogroll amnesty day, which was once one of the darkest days in the blogosphere, but has now been turned into a celebration of ...
this blogging alert brought to you by: Swiffer Reactions 8 Plastered Amnesty Mad on the Mike Biologyst frum Ze Swiffer: "have reminded me that this February 3 is the first anniversary of one of the darkest days in the blogosphere, ...
drinking liberally in new milford and mike the mad biologist have reminded me that this february 3 is the first anniversary of one of the darkest days in the blogosphere, blogroll amnesty day, the day that atrios of eschaton intitiated ...
skippy reminds us that Jon Swift reminds us that Drinking Liberally in New Milford reminds us that Mike the Mad Biologist reminds us that the first anniversary of the terrible blogroll amnesty day blogroll bloodbath will be upon us ...
Brewed by The Barefoot Bumat January 09, 2008 7:50 AM
