Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post was on Tuesday's Newshour commenting on the CNN/YouTube debate, when he told Gwen Ifil;

You know, I actually think that, as I've watched these debates -- and this is the fourth Democratic one we've had already -- as I've watched them, the margin between the best performance and the worst performance gets smaller and smaller.

I felt like last night -- you know, I do a winners and losers column at WashingtonPost.com -- I had trouble picking losers, just because I thought everybody did pretty well. But the problem for people like Bill Richardson, Dennis Kucinich, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd is that they really need a breakthrough, a big moment. And these debates haven't given them that yet.

I thought Dennis Kucinich did quite well last night. I thought Joe Biden did quite well. I thought Bill Richardson was better than he had been. And I thought Chris Dodd did well. But the problem is, what did we learn or see last night that fundamentally alters the dynamic, which is Clinton, Obama and possibly Edwards? I don't think we saw all that much that is going to make people who are watching think about this race in a different way.

Well, Mr Cillizza: How can one expect the media-defined second tier to have a breaktrough moment or alter the dynamic, when the supposed first tier gets almost twice as many opportunities to speak?

Unequal distribution of time has been a problem with most of the debates this primary season and it exists on both sides of the aisle. This is unfair and it does not provide the citizenry a chance to not only take an equal measure of all the candidates, but it also prevents their ideas from reaching the largest possible audience and our democracy is not being served.

Granted, there is no legal recourse to force the networks, sponsors, political parties and organizing committees to provide equal time to all qualified candidates, but there is the court of public opinion and that is why I urge everyone reading this post to sign this virtual petition and spread its address, far and wide.

Censorship can take many forms and among them is limiting the debate.

(x-posted)

New Mexico has part-time legislature, which meets for sixty days in odd-numbered years and thirty days in the evens. Unless they are called into special session, a real rarity, the abbreviated calendar greatly influences, what is and is not passed into law.

During the 2005 legislative session, a medical marijuana bill (SB795) had passed the state Senate, but the clock ran out in the House because Rep. Dan Silva was disappointed that some of his initiatives hadn't been scheduled before the Judiciary Committee, so he worked to delay the vote and freely admitted the motivations for his stunt.

In 2006, a similar situation occurred; The "Lynn and Erin Compassionate Use Act" (SB258) had passed the state Senate, but the Speaker of the State House assigned it to the Agriculture and Water Resources Committee, which was openly hostile to the idea. In the Santa Fe New Mexican, he said that this had been to express his disappointment with it being the first thing passed by the Senate and not because he opposed the act. After some wrangling by supporters of the measure, Speaker Lujan reassigned the bill to the Judiciary Committee at 3:45 on the last morning of the session, which meant the clock ran out at noon.

Throughout this entire history, Gov. Bill Richardson has said that he'd sign such a measure and during his 2006 campaign for re-election, he reiterated his support for medical marijuana in an interview with the Albuquerque Tribune, among other places.

Once again, the legislature is in session and this time around, there have been two "Compassionate Use Acts" introduced. The "Lynn and Erin Compassionate Use Act" (SB238) has made more progress because it has moved to the second step and though I haven't weighed the differences, but SB523 appears to be waiting in the wings.

Thus far, I haven't heard a lot from Governor Richardson on this subject, since he handily won re-election. Polls show that 81% of New Mexicans support medical marijuana, so it is popular with his constituents and because Mr Richardson dreams of a larger stage, it might be beneficial if he's able to sign a bill on a nationally popular subject, his opponents would not be able to address.

Credit: greyvorfeed for some of the links

The other day in my supplemental blog, I linked to a Christian Science profile of Oprah's South African school for girls, which noted studies that found when women are educated: "its overall per capita income increases and its fertility rate drops". While "other studies show that improved female education is linked to higher crop yields, lower HIV infection rates, and reduced infant mortality".

This afternoon, I became aware of a study from the International Medical Corps which looked at women displaced by the troubles in Darfur and to quote from their press release: "Nearly one third of the 1,283 women interviewed for the study met criteria for Major Depressive Disorder, while double that number reported symptoms of depression."

While a major service has been performed by all of these studies, deep down inside, I just want to say; No shit, Sherlocks.

I'll begin with an amusing commercial for fruit-flavored condoms and then after the jump, a couple of print ads from Switzerland.



( No Money Shots, but May Not Be Worksafe in a Stuffy Environment )

I'm not necessarily endorsing the candidacy of John Edwards. For the most part, I'm probably going to remain fairly neutral until the field is more full. But, since he was the starting point of my last post and because one of his phrases is starting to get some play, plus I'm kind of intrigued by his "National Day of Action" on January 27th; I'm doing as he asks and I'm sharing the following video.

I really don't have a position on the question at this time. Perhaps, if I thought about it and did a little more digging, but ordinarily I lean toward renewable energy. Though, I'm also realistic enough to know that it's not always feasable and I usually prefer to let the Native Americans handle their own affairs, especially in questions about economics and tradition.

With that said, I'm linking to an eight minute YouTube from Indigenous Action, which marks a protest at a proposed coal-fired power plant on the Navajo Nation. If built, it would be their third, but mostly I wanted to draw attention to their cause and because I think it's a terrific use of the medium. Their efforts are certainly along the lines of that which, Time recently celebrated.

It should also be noted that I've yet to view the other videos listed on their YouTube profile, plus in an attempt to be fair, I'm balancing this post with a link to a press release from the nation's President.

When I was watching the press conference for the Iraq Study Group, a question and series of answers jumped out at me as being very important. I had wanted to post about it earlier, but I decided to wait until a transcript was available.

The entire exchange is long. Though it's certainly worth reading because the crux is very important, but I realize that not everyone has the time or the interest. So, I'm going to put most of it under cuts and only leave the most important up top.

It was very obvious that Secretary Baker knew where to start and what he was going to say, but I can't tell for sure, if he also knew the order of those who wanted to respond. As I said, all the answers are great, but in her explanation Justice O'Connor addressed the assembled press and fortunately because we live in the 21st Century and can look through the filter to see right into the heart of the matter; I suggest that we exercise this ability.
---

QUESTION: All of you have considerable experience at helping presidents change course when they find themselves in a blind alley. What do you intend to do from now on to help President Bush embrace the wisdom of all of your recommendations?

He's already expressed some discomfort with several of them, including engaging Syria and Iran, and including giving the Iraqi government what might look like ultimata for changing its performance with the negative outcome of a troop disengagement if they don't comply.

How will you act from now on to get him closer to where you are?

BAKER: I think it would be appropriate for President Clinton's former chief of staff to answer that question.

(LAUGHTER)

( Leon Panetta )

BAKER: Justice O'Connor?

O'CONNOR: I would be willing to add a comment about what Leon Panetta has just expressed so well.

We've said in the report that we agree with the goal of U.S. policy in Iraq, as stated by the president: an Iraq that can govern itself, sustain itself, and defend itself.

And to do that, we've made these various recommendations on a consensus basis.

It's my belief that if a large segment of our country gets behind that on a consensus basis that it's very likely we can move forward and make some progress toward that statement of goals.

And this is not an ongoing commission. It really is out of our hands, having done what we did. It's up to you, frankly. You are the people who speak to the American people. You're there interpreting this and talking to America. And I hope that the American people will feel that if they are behind something in broad terms that we'll be better off.

I think we will, and I hope in general others think so, too.

( Senator Alan Simpson )
( Edwin Meese )
( Rep. Lee Hamilton )

(x-posted)

I took my daughter to see Happy Feet on Saturday night and while a lot of the film can be described as a music video starring animated penguins, I was actually surprised by the final reel and think that maybe the quick descriptions could be a disservice.

There's really no way to accurately describe this film without providing spoilers, so there will be some in the following paragraphs.

For anyone who wants to be somewhat surprised by the cartoon, I'll say that a lot of it's non-dancing scenes follow a similar storyline as Ferngully; Brittany Murphy is an okay singer, but it'd have to be small pool for her to be the best and I feel that Anne Hathway's rendition of Queen's "Somebody to Love" in Ella Enchanted was much better. And, by the time the end was in sight, I really thought it was headed toward Bono's "One" or maybe Sting's "One World", but instead, you get some Lennon/McCartney, a reprise of Stevie Wonder's "I Wish" and it all comes together with Prince warbling about "one world united, singing a song of the heart".

( What the Movie is Really About (Contains Spoilers) )
The film was honestly more than I thought it'd be.

It doesn't have the language or humor of Shrek and especially with all the dancing, you could say that it's sappier than most Pixars, but it is better than any of the recent non-Pixar, Disney cartoons and considerably deeper than Madagascar.

All in all, if you want to see some singing and dancing penguins, I don't think there will ever be a better vehicle.

I only became aware of this young lady's struggle on Saturday, most of the coverage has been in a newspaper which I don't ordinarily read and she lives in a place that I mostly know from the highway. After reading a brief report, I started looking for everything that I could find in hopes of telling part of her story here, as a tribute.

As was detailed in Saturday's Virginian-Pilot, Danielle Smiley told her first person that she was a lesbian, when she was in the seventh grade. As kids do, the first friend told another and they told another until it had become common knowledge among a lot of her schoolmates and she started getting the harassment, which so often plagues our homosexual youth and others who might be perceived as different.

It was while on a field trip during the ninth grade that Ms Smiley got into a heated discussion with her girlfriend and because it was overheard, they became the talk of her classmates. When her teachers got word of this argument, they took Ms Smiley aside and told her that she should come out to her parents because they were going to tell them of her sexual orientation, either way.

According to media reports, her mother had some difficulty with the news because she felt it went against her beliefs, but eventually she came around to accepting her daughter for who she is and once again, she became supportive of her child.

Because of the harassment she had suffered, Danielle started researching and laying the groundwork for a "Gay-Straight Alliance" club at her school. It seems that the purpose of a Gay-Straight Alliance club is just what the name implies; It's designed to help foster understanding and to combat homophobia or other prejudices. The clubs are an offshoot from the "Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network" and there are over 3,000 chapters in schools all across the country.

When Ms Smiley followed procedures and applied to Currituck County High for permission to start an extra-curricular club, I can only assume that she was met with opposition. Otherwise, the tale would've ended there and it would not have played out for so long on the pages of a small North Carolina newspaper, multiple school board meeting, church pulpits and a candidate's forum.

When the Daily Advance interviewed kids hanging-out in the parking lot after school one day, they characterized the support as mixed. Two students opposed the formation of the club, two had no opinion or said it didn't matter, while three were supportive. Though, two of these three made certain the reporter knew, they would not be joining.

When the topic was brought before the local school board, 130 people jammed the meeting hall, but only fifteen spoke. Two of the speakers were Danielle and her mother, who both spoke in favor of tolerance, while the majority spoke about the spread of AIDS, whether it'd be a homosexual recruiting club, promote sex and its appropriateness as a school club.

On November 1st, school board candiates met in a forum sponsored by the NAACP. Two of the candidates for the only open seat said flat-out, they'd vote against allowing the club, while the other two tried to hedge their bets by saying they personally oppose the club, but didn't think they could legally stop it. The ACLU had already spread the word that they were watching, so a reluctant yes came from the two unopposed incumbents and for some reason, the local head of the NAACP volunteered his opposition.

When this story first broke, the initial media reports did not reveal the name of the student and in fact, school officials reassured the newspaper that the proposal had actually originated with a student. From the get-go, the minister from the Jarvisburg Church of Christ, who uses the web addy of bibleonly.com said that he'd fervently oppose it. Yet, Danielle Smiley bravely stood her ground and took responsibility for herself, by publicly becoming the spokesperson for her cause.

On November 6th, the School Superintendent announced what appears to be a compromise, if you don't look too deep. All extra-curricular clubs, such as SADD, the christian groups, choir and the Gay-Straight Alliance would no longer be allowed to use the PA or post flyers, their picture wouldn't be in the yearbook and students would need parental permission to join.

For some reason this is being seen as opening the door to something, they couldn't legally disallow, but it looks more like a distancing thing to me. Apparently they had no problems with christian groups being included in the yearbook, before the possibility existed that the friends to gays might join them.

And, during the raucous school board meeting, Danielle says the club could provide support to students when their teachers are forcing them out against their will. "Sometimes the parent will hurt the child," she is quoted as saying. Unfortunately due to the parental permission requirement, even if a student is just interested in tolerance, in a rural county with no incorporated towns and plenty of cotton fields, it'll still have the effect of raising uncomfortable and unnecessary questions.

Nevertheless, seventeen year old Danielle Smiley is a brave young girl, who took on the forces of prejudice in her community and though she wasn't completely victorious, she valiantly fought for what she believed.

Now, if we could only find her full ride to Chapel Hill, so that she can finally be free.

I was just flipping back through the episodes of "The Show with Zefrank" that I've missed since my last visit, when a cute Cheneyism struck me and I googled for the original source, before posting this quote from "The Show";

In the event of a tie in the Senate, the Vice President casts the deciding vote. Speaking to a crowd earlier this month, Cheney said; "The thing I've noticed is that every time I get to vote, our side wins".

( And, Now for Something Else that's Decidedly Non-Partisan )

Last night I thought about making a post, where I made fun of the spinach recall. One of the local stations was teasing it for the late news and New Mexico is among the states with reported cases of E Coli.

My comment was going to be about a blurb from an FDA person that said the bad spinach hadn't been tied to any specific producer, processing plant or lot number. The local station said there are seven cases under investigation in New Mexico, but the young lady from the state health department said that not all of our local patients had reported eating bagged spinach. Also, one of the other stations had an interview with a grocery customer, who said that her family eats bagged spinach several times a week, they had no plans to change this behavior and she wondered about the personal hygiene of those who had gotten sick.

Most of my fun-making was going to be pointed toward the federal official because I know that here in my small town, there's four different brands of bagged spinach. My daughter has always refused lettuce and tomato in her salads, so up until this year, we always made our salads without either of these ingredients, though my wife and I would always have ours on a bed of lettuce. For the most part, my daughter's salads contained garbanzos, black olives, baby carrots, cheese chunks, unsalted sunflower kernels and croutons. It was only this year, we discovered that she has no objection with having baby spinach in her salads, so by and large, my wife and I have quit having lettuce and all of our salads for the whole family, now contains bagged spinach.

Despite what was being reported, I found it doubtful that every brand of spinach was coming from the same processor, so I couldn't see how all bagged spinach could be bad. Sure, we don't buy the "Popeye's" brand because it doesn't look like salad spinach and most often, we buy the "Newman's Own" because whenever possible, we buy the Newman brand of everything. As it says on my t-shirt; "All profits to charity". They've given over $200 million away, thus far and I've always tried to do my part.

Locally, only Walmart has the "Newman's Own Organics" bagged baby spinach, so if I'm in a hurry and at the other store, I usually buy the "Earthbound Farm" or the "Dole", when it's on sale and at a very good price.

Now, tonight, I learn that though they can't say for certain, it is the organic processor owned by Earthbound Farms that appears to be the source of the problem. The latest story from Yahoo! News says they also process the "Dole - Organic" and several other brands. A quick look at the press releases on Earthbound Farms parent company's website shows that they actually do the production for thirty-one labels. Thankfully, the Newman's Own is not among them and though his website says there has been no reported cases tied to their product, they also don't recommend eating their spinach until more information is known, as a precaution.

Out of all the brands, I prefer the Newman's because of the taste and superior quality, plus as I said above, whenever I'm given my druthers, I'll always pay a little extra for the better product and in support of charity. And, though everything may not be known at this time, I'm really glad that there's half a bag of Newman's in the fridge. After all, it can't be beat.

When I first heard that the second richest man was going to give his money to the very richest, it really was all that I could see. Now that they've made the rounds and all three did an extended interview with Charlie Rose, I'll say that I feel slightly better about the decision, but I also can't really see past some of the choices made by the Gates Foundation.

Their pie chart shows that the bulk of their donations have gone to "Global Health", but the overwhelming majority of nickle and dime grants appear to have gone to libraries. I'll say this is a noble gesture because I know of some libraries that have benefited, but I've also heard about places whose applications that may not have been accepted because the donation would not have resulted in the purchase of Microsoft-branded software. I don't know this as the precise reason for some of the rejections, but it is what could be inferred from some of the applications that I know have been refused.

On occasion, I'll have to say that I've taken swipes at both individuals. Warren Buffett is on record as favoring simple, easy to understand investments and I'm somewhat jealous of his ability to effect the market. Most of his wealth has come from the reinvestment of those insurance premiums that I and others pay every month. It's free money that he's turned around and put mostly into old school companies with a straight forward route to profit. I've also never considered Bill to be especially special. I can't really point to any one factor, but his fortune has been built on a degree of ruthlessness, unfair practices, mistakes by his competitors and dumb luck. If IBM had insisted on buying DOS or if Apple hadn't made the blunder of not licensing their OS to clones, Microsoft and Bill Gates would not necessarily be in the driver's seat.

I guess that I can't really fault either of these men for their magnanimous gestures, but I'd hope that we'll see a more strategic plan to be forthcoming. The Gates Foundation is slated to become more wealthy than the gross national product of most nations. They will have the resources to cause real change, but I don't know that Bill Gates has the vision. You have to give him credit for amassing the wealth and for being simple enough for Warren Buffett to understand, but as a citizen of the planet, I can't help but wonder if it's really wise to place so much burden onto his shoulders. Is he really the person whom we'd choose, if our mission was to save the world? Is it just me, or is anyone else wishing that he'd demonstrate more compassion in his day-to-day life and why do I have to wonder if through Mr Buffett's gift, Microsoft may become even more immune to governmental oversight? A seventy billion dollar endowment could go a long ways toward purchasing goodwill and a feeling of indebtedness.

Perhaps you could say that I'm longing for Bono, a bowl full of Bill Clinton and a dash of Ted Turner. Though I can only admire the reality, I wish these people or others of their caliber could have more influence on the result, or that we could hear more of the plan.

If I posted an update for every entry, I'd never get anything else done.

Sometimes it's as simple as an obscure angle or story getting picked-up by mainstream media; I've occasionally seen a direct reversal and sometimes it's just something neat. For example, last year on "International Darwin Day", I linked to a study about the willingness of Rhesus monkeys to forego juice to look at pictures of their dominate brethren. On the season finale of Boston Legal, the case involved something similar to "Gawker Stalker Map" and in his closing arguments, James Spader outlined the study.

I take no credit for any of these events. All of these scenarios could be motivation for an update, but I usually don't bother. Though at this time, I am going to invoke my "Randomness" method because I think these situations could be noteworthy and possibly as a reward, or because it doesn't merit a post of its own; I'm going to stick something new to the bottom of this post.

÷÷÷
On Saturday, I linked to the beginning of a controversy about default icons depicting breastfeeding. I addressed the root of the situation in the comments, but if you haven't been following the story, I'd say that it's been a shitstorm for Livejournal and lj_abuse.

The boob_nazis organized a letter-writing campaign using an auto-mail system. At the last published count, they had sent almost 1,500 letters of protest, when they called an unilateral ceasefire because they started getting responses from people with authority. If you're interested, you can go back to the beginning and read forward, or you could jump directly to the signed "apology" from a VP of Six Apart, which is now positioned as the topmost entry in the community.

I think the mothers did themselves proud and though many of them were focused on the singular subject at hand, others expanded it to point out other problems with abuse. I only interjected myself via an outside blog. Trolls have been making a game of reporting offending icons and I'm not really sure if mine would pass muster, so I've been "HidingMyself"

My personal position is quite simple; I support the idea of breastfeeding and I agree the icons did not violate the "Terms of Service", as they stood at the beginning of this controversy. I feel that LJ made an egregious error, when they reworded the TOS on Saturday to support their position on the icons and that's one of the things for which Mr Bryan has apologized.

I also feel that lj_abuse needs to be professionalized and this space shouldn't be policed by a bunch of inconsistent volunteers, who must be on some kind of power trip because why else would they do it? I also did not like their response to my only report and as I've said elsewhere, if MySpace had to appoint a safety czar, lj should do something similar. I've seen on one of Mena Trott's blogs, mention of a large influx of capital and I feel that they should spend some of this to professionalize the service.

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I only made a few posts about the Sago Mine disaster in West Virginia. As I said at the time, my mother's grandfather actually married a pair of sisters who literally lived down the road from the mine, so it was of special interest to me. Plus, I remember the relief that I felt when they saved those miners in Pennsylvania, so I lived and breathed the story in hopes of a similar outcome.

The WV State Legislature have been holding hearings about what happened and the testimony from the chair of the Mining and Mineral Engineering Department at Virginia Tech, who was hired by the company to investigate, struck me as interesting. So, I'm going to clip from a couple of media reports and put them under a ( cut. )

NPR also offers some audio about the theory, but it's more color than content, when compared to the text links on this topic.

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On Sunday, I juxtaposed a NYTimes story about West Virginians having to seek work out of state, with an LATimes piece on immigration reform. The meat of my little "joke" was based on a woman featured in the Los Angeles paper, who runs a landscape management company. Cyndi Smallwood said she was ambivalent about reform, but she favors a guest worker program because she was having trouble finding experienced people for a $34, per hour job.

An alert corner of the blogosphere did some googling and discovered that she belongs to an activist group, she has lobbied on the subject and has flown to Washington to make her views known. She has also been quoted in the California media on occasion and because her $34 was so much higher than the other wages cited in the article, the very existence of the jobs have been called into question. As of this writing, the LATimes has said that they will not be issuing a retraction, correction or apology for the misleading manner with which she was characterized.

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Something New

"Scientists Create Artificial Penis"