Zack Space Gets His (Crappy) House Website

I don't know how long it's been up, but Zack Space has finally gotten a permanent House website up. I must say though that it's pretty annoying. The flash banner (Whoops, did I say flash? I meant animated GIF.) is pointless and doesn't even contain pictures from his district. The buttons in the middle of the page are pixilated and the scrolling frame is is definite no-no. It's best to let people choose their own speed. If they were so set on the automatic scrolling they should have at least provided a scroll bar for people looking for a specific item.

He still isn't able to receive email from constituents, though he's better off than Charlie Wilson.

Read More: Homepage : Congressman Zack Space Representing the 18th District of Ohio

Just When You Think It's Over, Path To 9/11 Is Back

"Path to 9/11", the right wing propaganda film blaming 9/11 on Bill Clinton, is back. The scenes removed by ABC after they were shown to be inaccurate are about to be aired on Fox News.

With Sean Hannity being the host do you really think the clips will be shown in a "fair and balanced" way? I'm not holding my breath.

LOS ANGELES (Jan. 26) - Fox News Channel says it has obtained controversial unseen footage from ABC's miniseries "The Path to 9/11" and will air the video during "Hannity's America" on Sunday night.

Before "Path" aired in September, Democrats and former aides to President Clinton demanded changes to the miniseries, which revolves around the events leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks, saying that it contained fictionalized scenes and unfairly blamed the Clinton administration for failing to capture or kill Osama bin Laden.

Source: TV News- Fox News to Air Controversial '9/11' Footage - AOL News

The Death Of The Googlebomb

Google has finally killed off the "Googlebomb". Googlebombing gained national news coverage last year after it was used as a campaign tactic against a list of Republican candidates.

We wanted to give a quick update about "Googlebombs." By improving our analysis of the link structure of the web, Google has begun minimizing the impact of many Googlebombs. Now we will typically return commentary, discussions, and articles about the Googlebombs instead. The actual scale of this change is pretty small (there are under a hundred well-known Googlebombs), but if you'd like to get more details about this topic, read on.

Well I guess that's the end of that, at least until people find a workaround. Never really cared much for the idea myself, though I did participate.

Read More: Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: A quick word about Googlebombs

Tim Johnson Recovering Well, Watching CNN

Senator Tim Johnson's staff posted a new press release today. Full text below.

Contact: Julianne Fisher - 202-224-1638 Megan Smith - 202-224-1770

Statement from the Office of Senator Johnson

January 25, 2007

Washington, DC—U.S. Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD) continues to make encouraging and steady progress in his recovery at the in-patient rehabilitation unit at the George Washington University Hospital.

“Senator Johnson is showing evidence of more functional, spontaneous speech and is indicating preferences. He is answering questions and following commands appropriately,” said Philip Marion, MD, Medical Director for the Department of Rehabilitative Medicine.

This week, his speech therapist, Jen Speer, was discussing the names of his family members and Senator Johnson offered up the name of his youngest grandson, Cooper, when she couldn’t recall it. He is watching movies with his family and requested to have his television set to CNN during the day. Johnson is also following the Colts progress in the NFL playoffs and rooting for South Dakota native, Adam Vinatieri.

“This has been an exciting week filled with progress. Tim is following the news closely and was honored that the President remembered him,” said Barbara Johnson, wife of Senator Johnson. “His family remains his primary concern, and he even reminded his speech therapist when she forgot the name of his youngest grandson.

Source: Get Well Card from Pierre Received in Washington

The Peoples Party Is Spelled D-E-M-O-C-R-A-T-I-C

I was looking through the Presidential hopefuls today and I realized something. All the Republican candidates are old white guys. John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney are all old, white, and male. The top three Democrats so far seem to be Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards. We've also got a Hispanic, Bill Richardson, in the race as well.

Now which party would you say is a better representation on the American public?

Source: Campaign 2008: The Presidential Field | 2008 Presidential Candidates | washingtonpost.com

Rolling Stone: Can't Get Better than Al Gore

Al Gore has said that he has no plans on running for President, yet he pointedly refuses to completely rule it out. Now some people seem to get sick and tired of waiting and a draft Gore movement seems to be brewing.

Rolling Stone has an article online why Al might just be the perfect candidate for the democrats. He has no Iraq baggage, he was against the war from the start. He has great name recognition and has been in the news for his movie "An Inconvenient Truth". He's even proven his electability by winning the popular vote in 2000.

A stiff Vice President campaigns on his administration's legacy of unprecedented prosperity. Looks terrible on TV. Bows out, following a disputed vote count. Then, two terms later, with no incumbent in the race, he re-enters the fray. Promises to change the course of a disastrous war founded on lies. And charges to victory. I'm referring, of course, to the 1968 campaign of Richard Milhous Nixon. But four decades later, history has a chance to repeat itself for Albert Arnold Gore.

If the Democrats were going to sit down and construct the perfect candidate for 2008, they'd be hard-pressed to improve on Gore. Unlike Hillary Clinton, he has no controversial vote on Iraq to defend. Unlike Barack Obama and John Edwards, he has extensive experience in both the Senate and the White House. He has put aside his wooden, policy-wonk demeanor to emerge as the Bush administration's most eloquent critic. And thanks to An Inconvenient Truth, Gore is not only the most impassioned leader on the most urgent crisis facing the planet, he's also a Hollywood celebrity, the star of the third-highest-grossing documentary of all time.

If Gore should run he would easily get my vote.

Read More: Rolling Stone : Why Gore Should Run -- And How He Can Win via HuffPo

While your there check out the post on Mean Jean, the "arch-dipshit of the American polity".

Tags: al gore, president, election08, democrats

Marc Dann To Save Emails 150 Days Longer Than Petro

Recently elected Attorney General Marc Dann has decided to increase the number of days that office email is saved from 30 days to 180 days. The decision was made because Dann thought 30 days was an insufficient amount of time to meet Ohio's Open Records Act.

Apparently Jim Petro wasn't aware of the effects that Gmail was having on email. Who deletes email anymore?

Read More: cleveland.com: Weblogs

BREAKING: No Kerry Run In '08

MSNBC is reporting that John Kerry will soon announce that he won't be running for President in 2008.

Update 3:20 PM

Kerry is making the announcement now, during a speech on the floor of the Senate.

Update 7:45 PM

JohnKerry.com seems like it's doing everything it can to downplay the announcement. The only mention comes at the bottom of a press release from earlier today.

At the end of his remarks today, Kerry said that he would remain in the Senate to concentrate on the issue of Iraq and would forgo mounting a run for the presidency. He said he is running for reelection for his Senate seat, which is up in 2008.

It's not even in the title of the release.

MSNBC Analyst Say's Pelosi's Dress Costs More Than A House

MSNBC political analyst Mike Barnicle just couldn't pass up the chance to make a cheap remark on the clothes of House speaker Nancy Pelosi. He baselessly claimed that Pelosi's dress "cost more than the average American paid for their first home".

No comment was made pertaining to the cost of any man's suit.

Math has never been my strong suit. And I have difficulty balancing my check book. But you don't have to be Stephen Hawking to figure out that A. Nancy Pelosi's outfit cost more than the average American paid for their first home

Source: Hardblogger : SOTU: Do the math

CNN Has SOTU By The Numbers

CNN has made this list of frequently used words from the speech as well as some notable absences.

"America" or "American" - 49
"Iraq" or "Iraqi" - 34
"child" or "children" - 15
"enemy" - 10
"democratic" (little "d") or "democracy" - 8
"success" - 5
"War on Terror" - 4
"courage" - 4
"Madam Speaker" - 3
"failure" - 3
"troops" - 3
"Baby Einstein" - 3
"freedom" - 3
"evil" - 2
"friend" - 2
"victory" - 2
"Democrat" or "Democratic" (big "D") - 1
"Republican" - 0
"surge" - 0

It's also worth mentioning that Bush was interrupted 63 times by applause.

Source: CNN.com - CNN Political Ticker

The State of the Union (Isn't Good)

Well I managed to sit through the entire speech tonight and I must say that I regret it. I always forget how much I hate the State of the Union until the point where everyone sits down. All the clapping is just too much.

Did anyone else notice that Bush reached the podium at 9:11?

I've taken transcripts of the speech and the democratic response and converted them into a PDF file.

Download PDF Transcript from DivShare

Things To Do For The SOTU

My Dad always tells me that when he was a kid if the President was on TV then your night was shot. If your what passes as normal in this country than you'll also probably find the speech tonight pretty boring so I've decided to help you out. Here's a list of things you can do during the speech to keep from losing your mind.

• Read the State of the Union initiatives at WhiteHouse.gov.
• Count how many times the speech is interrupted by applause.
• Play State of the Union Bingo at Democrats.org.
• Visit MSNBC's special State of the Union section.
• Watch for the next "kiss of death".
• Take you pick of the Wonkette or Mother Jones SOTU drinking games.
• Go invest in companies producing ethanol.
• Enjoy Brian William's distraction from the D.C. happenings- this list of new words for 2007 that appeared on wired.com.
• Be glad your not on a plane to D.C. since they are closing off 3,000 square miles of airspace during the speech.

Or you could just watch something else. Don't forget that we've got cable now.

What Is It With Cheney's And Body Parts?

Dick Cheney's daughter has recently said that she doubt's that Hillary Clinton has the "spine" to deal with Iraq, this comes a few weeks after her fathers appearance on Fox News where he repeatedly said that al-Qaeda was betting that America "doesn't have the stomach" to stick it out in Iraq.

Well Dick (make your own body part joke, I'm not going there) and family, maybe Hillary will have the mind to realize that the current administration in clueless and the (healthy) heart to not get our soldiers killed in an impulsive, ill-conceived troop surge.

Read More: Cheney daughter: Clinton lacks Iraq 'spine' - Politics - MSNBC.com

NYC Ordered To Release Documents On '04 RNC Arrests

New York City has been court ordered to allow the ACLU to release video and documents pertaining to the estimated 1,800 arrests that took place during the 2004 Republican National Convention. The information was collected for two lawsuits the New York branch of the ACLU (NYCLU) filed over the arrests in October 2004.

The city had been seeking to bar the release of the documents claiming that it was seeking to protect the privacy of protesters that weren't a part of the lawsuit.

The judge responded by saying that "the city gives the general public very little credit when it contends that readers will be unable to grasp that the information contained in these documents might be incomplete or inaccurate" and that "The allegedly sensitive information to which the city refers would be obvious to anyone with a modicum of common sense".

The ACLU will hold off on the release of the documents as the city may appeal the ruling.

Read More: Judge orders NYC to release documents | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

Hate To Say I Told You So But...

Campaign season seems to be off to a running start. Today marked the exposure of the first big lie that I've heard of so far.

Insight Magazine, a publication by mass wedding freak and Washington Times owner Sun Myung Moon, is claiming that Barack Obama attended a radical Muslim school as a child. CNN has already posted a rebuttal showing that the rumor is untrue and a person associated with Hillary Clinton's campaign has labeled it a right wing hit job.

2007 is definitely going to be a long year.

Read More: CNN debunks false report about Obama - CNN.com

Run For President: Come On, Everyone's Doing It

It's starting to look a lot like... no, not Christmas (even though we have about 4" of snow outside). Rather it's starting to look like campaign season. This weekend alone has added three more into the pool.

First up came Hillary Clinton's online announcement that she is forming an exploratory committee early Saturday. Naturally this didn't take anyone by surprise but it's still nice that it's official now.

Later that day came the announcement from Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) that he will make a run. We aren't talking exploratory committee either, he's running.

Today brought with it the expected announcement of a decision from New Mexico's Democratic Governor Bill Richardson on whether or not he planned to run. He also will set up an exploratory committee.