Dyre Portents The Rantings and Ravings of a Radical Moderate Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 0 0 136 6046

Articles from Dyre Portents

US Government to Monitor All of Cyberspace? 2008-01-15 00:56:45 For our security of course.From the Wall Street JournalSpychief Mike McConnell is drafting a plan to protect America’s cyberspace that will raise privacy issues and make the current debate over surveillance law look like “a walk in the park,” McConnell tells The New Yorker in the issue set to hit newsstands Monday. “This is going to be a goat rope on the Hill. My prediction is that we’re going to screw around with this until something horrendous happens.” At issue, McConnell acknowledges, is that in order to accomplish his plan, the government must have the ability to read all the information crossing the Internet in the United States in order to protect it from abuse. Congressional aides tell The Journal that they, too, are also anticipating a fight over civil liberties that will rival the battles over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.Ok, blatantly obvious privacy concerns aside I see this creating a slippery slope. By that I mean how long until this technology g ...

Things I Have Learned 2008-01-12 21:18:50 Never allow a pregnant and nesting woman into a facility that adopts out animals. ...

What's Bloomberg Waiting For? 2008-01-12 00:49:42 I think I've figured it out. Simply put he's waiting to see who the nominees are. By that I mean that his candidacy wouldn't have the same traction in an Obama vs McCain race as it would in a Clinton vs Romney or Giuliani race. ...

The Case Against Ethanol 2008-01-11 23:17:05 I've long been an opponent of ethanol as a viable source of alternative energy for America. At best it's a short sighted and inefficient attempt at energy independence at worst its just another way to subsidize corn. Over at Scientific American the recently published an article showing the results of a five year study on switchgrass and found that acre per acre it produces over twenty one times more energy than ethanol.But yields from a grass that only needs to be planted once would deliver an average of 13.1 megajoules of energy as ethanol for every megajoule of petroleum consumed—in the form of nitrogen fertilizers or diesel for tractors—growing them. "It's a prediction because right now there are no biorefineries built that handle cellulosic material" like that which switchgrass provides, Vogel notes. "We're pretty confident the ethanol yield is pretty close." This means that switchgrass ethanol delivers 540 percent of the energy used to produce it, compared with just roughl ...

Word of the Day 2008-01-11 22:21:28 HubrisOverbearing pride or presumption.For example:"If you have a social need, you're with Hillary. If you want Obama to be your imaginary hip black friend and you're young and you have no social needs, then he's cool," - a "Clinton adviser" to Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland. ...

Also Appearing at 2008-01-11 00:55:28 The inestimable MVDG has asked me to contribute at The PoliGazette. Since I am always looking for new people to annoy I of course accepted. So please drop by and see whats going on there. Its a good blog despite the fact that MVDG allows me to post there. ...

Unity 08 Closes Shop 2008-01-11 00:27:46 Unity08 announced today that its closing the doors on its current incarnation due to a shortage of both members and money.From Unity08.com The past year has taught us that it's tough to rally millions to a process as opposed to a candidate or an issue. In the past, third party movements that have broken through the monopoly of the established parties have always been based on a person (Teddy Roosevelt in 1912 or Ross Perot in the last decade) or a burning issue (slavery in the case of the insurgent Republican party in 1860). Stirring people and moving them to action about a process change - replacing the quirky primary system that tends to drive candidates to the extremes with something more inclusive and sensible - has proven to be a lot harder than we expected. And the Federal Election Commission hasn't helped. The Commission has taken the position that we are subject to their jurisdiction (even though two United States Supreme Court decisions hold exactly opposite) and, therefore, ...

Bill Richardson Bows Out 2008-01-10 00:57:27 Looks like he knows when the getting is good...From MSNBC:MERRIMACK, N.H. - New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson will announce Thursday that he is ending his campaign for the presidency, sources inside the Richardson campaign confirmed to NBC News on Wednesday.Sources told The Associated Press and NBC News about the withdrawal plan on condition of anonymity in advance of the governor's announcement.The Richardson campaign would not comment on the governor's decision, reached after a meeting with his top advisers Wednesday in New Mexico.I think had Obama not entered the race his bid for the nomination might have had more traction. However with his resume I'm sure he'll land on his feet. Perhaps he'll even end up being someone's running mate. ...

Clinton Clinches New Hampshire 2008-01-09 00:42:07 It was an exceedingly close victory though Clinton's 39% to Obama's 37%From ABC News: Sen. Hillary Clinton has narrowly won the New Hampshire primary, becoming the first woman -- and the first-ever former first lady -- to win the first-in-the-nation contest. Clinton beat out Sen. Barack Obama, who, riding a wave of momentum from his Iowa caucus victory, battled for a close second place in the Granite State. Never thought to be a major factor in New Hampshire, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards came in a distant third in the state and will now focus his limited resources on South Carolina, where he won in 2004....The tight race has also secured Obama as a formidable opponent for Clinton, setting up what may become a bloody political battle between the two Democratic rivals going into the big-state primaries Feb. 5.Man if this had been a football game Clinton won it by a field goal. Despite the loss Obama has shown that he is capable of effectively competing with Clinton. That'll ...

Racist Rants Return to Plague Ron Paul 2008-01-08 22:52:38 Over at TNR James Kirchick tracked down some of Ron Paul's old newsletters and discovered that the allegations of their racist content were in fact true.From TNR:Finding the pre-1999 newsletters was no easy task, but I was able to track many of them down at the libraries of the University of Kansas and the Wisconsin Historical Society. Of course, with few bylines, it is difficult to know whether any particular article was written by Paul himself. Some of the earlier newsletters are signed by him, though the vast majority of the editions I saw contain no bylines at all. Complicating matters, many of the unbylined newsletters were written in the first person, implying that Paul was the author.But, whoever actually wrote them, the newsletters I saw all had one thing in common: They were published under a banner containing Paul's name, and the articles (except for one special edition of a newsletter that contained the byline of another writer) seem designed to create the impression that ...

The Song Remains the Same 2008-01-08 22:28:56 But this time its a Dem accused of taking bribes in return for earmarks. Is this just the tip of the iceberg?From Citizensforethics.comCitizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) today sent a complaint to the Department of Justice, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District for Louisiana and the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, asking for an investigation into whether Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) violated federal bribery law by including a $2 million earmark for Voyager Expanded Learning in a bill a mere four days after receiving $30,000 in campaign contributions from company executives and their relatives. CREW also asked the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate the matter.Call me cynical but part of me is just waiting for the Dem's to start showing the same degree of corruption we saw when the government was under GOP control. We need meaningful election/ campaign finance reform. However until that happens I'm going to continue backing publicly finan ...

Obamania Hits South Carolina 2008-01-07 23:20:51 Ok, I may have been wrong about Obama needing NH to guarantee a win in SC.from Rasmussen:The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in South Carolina shows that Barack Obama has opened a double digit-lead over Hillary Clinton in the January 26th Primary Election. It’s Obama 42% Clinton 30%. John Edwards attracts 14% of the vote and nobody else tops 3%....In South Carolina, Obama now attracts 58% of the African-American vote, up from 50% in December. Earlier in the year, Obama and Clinton split this important constituency fairly evenly. Now while Obama enjoys a 2-to-1 advantage over Clinton among African-American voters, white voters are split fairly evenly between three candidates--it’s Clinton 32%, Edwards 29%, and Obama 27%. For Obama, that reflects a 13-point improvement from the previous survey. I do think a Clinton win in NH could make SC a tight race between the two. However what's it say about Edwards that he polls better in Iowa and New Hampshire than he does in his hom ...

Obama Now Ahead in NH Polls 2008-01-06 23:42:31 Looks like his win in Iowa answered that electability question.From CNN:MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (CNN) — MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (CNN) — Two days before New Hampshire's Democratic primary, Sen. Barack Obama has opened a double-digit lead over Sen. Hillary Clinton in that state, a new CNN-WMUR poll found Sunday. Obama, the first-term senator from Illinois who won last week's Iowa caucuses, led the New York senator and former first lady 39 percent to 29 percent in a poll conducted Saturday and Sunday — a sharp change from a poll out Saturday that showed the Democratic front-runners tied at 33 percent. Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina is at 16 percent in the new survey, down four points from Saturday. Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico is in fourth place, with the support of 7 percent of likely New Hampshire Democratic primary voters, with Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio at 2 percent.A USA Today poll confirms this but also shows that Huckabee isn't receiving a similar b ...

I'm Getting Hitched 2008-01-04 23:16:08 As of 10:30am tomorrow I will officially be off the market. Ladies, please try to keep the wailing and gnashing of teeth to a minimum. Thanks. ...

Obama and Huckabee Win in Iowa 2008-01-03 23:41:33 Definitely an upset for the predicted winners Clinton and Romney.From Reuters:Obama and Huckabee win first 2008 voteDES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - Barack Obama took a big step on Thursday toward becoming the first black U.S. president when his campaign for change caught fire in Iowa and swept him past Hillary Clinton in the opening Democratic nominating contest. Republican underdog Mike Huckabee capped a stunning political rise to beat rival Mitt Romney in Iowa, despite being dramatically outspent by the wealthy former Massachusetts governor and venture capitalist. Obama, an Illinois senator, captured the first Democratic prize on the road to the White House with a comeback triumph over New York Sen. Clinton and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, who were in a tight battle for second....Turnout among Democrats topped 220,000, smashing the previous record of 124,000 in 2004 -- testament to the high enthusiasm among Democrats heading into November's election.Conversely only 90,00 ...