The Colette

Monday, February 25, 2008

I have moved to WordPress self hosting!

I am now self hosting my blog and using WordPress blogging software for those who self host. I can now be found at TooProgressive.com!

Why the change? Well, self hosting provides many more opportunities for me to branch out within the blogging community and WordPress is one of the best blog services out there for those who self host. The new site is still not completely built out yet, but rather then resume posting here while continuing to build, I'm going to go ahead and start posting there while I'm still working out a few bugs. Also, all of the archives have been moved over as well!

For those wishing to subscribe to the new blog feed:

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Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Teamsters Union to endorse Barack Obama

Just days after the Service Employees International Union endorsed Barack Obama for President he has picked up another important Union endorsement. According to the AP the Teamsters Union is now set to endorse Obama.

Union officials say the powerful Teamsters union will endorse Barack Obama.

The officials say the International Brotherhood of Teamsters is expected to make an official announcement later Wednesday. Teamster President James P. Hoffa plans to meet with Obama in Austin, Texas, before an announcement is made.

The Teamsters represent 1.4-million members, and are considered one of the largest and most powerful unions. They also are a potent source of campaign cash and get-out-the-vote workers for Democrats.

As we all know endorsements don't necessarily mean voters will follow, but it is important when it comes to building structure in your campaign and Unions especially are good at getting out the vote. Also, up until now Hillary has pretty much had the "blue collar" or "working class" vote on her side. However last night in Wisconsin, and with this endorsement is appears that that too may be shifting towards Obama.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Why is Hillary trying to steal Obama's Virginia delegates?

If this report from Talking Points Memo has any truth behind it, Clinton could be trying to go after Obama's pledged delegates (NOT super delegates, but delegates who are supposed to represent OUR vote), including the 54 Obama won in Virginia's primary last week.

Via Roger Simon at Politico:

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign intends to go after delegates whom Barack Obama has already won in the caucuses and primaries if she needs them to win the nomination.

This strategy was confirmed to me by a high-ranking Clinton official on Monday. And I am not talking about super delegates, those 795 party big shots who are not pledged to anybody. I am talking about getting pledged delegates to switch sides.

Wow, just wow.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Economics for dummies

Why a budget surplus is a good thing:

The House also recommends using only about $220 million from the state's $1.2 billion "rainy day" cash reserves to cushion the projected revenue shortfall on the current budget. Kaine had initially recommended about $261 million, but increased it last week to $423 million.
With "hard times" forthcoming ahead of an economic slow down within our state after the extraordinary growth over the past few years, isn't it nice to have the "luxury" of being able to rely on such a large supply of cash reserves thanks to the responsibility of Governor Warner? Who, much to the dismay of many on the right, was intelligent enough to realize that enormous economic growth does not continue forever, but rather in (generally natural) "peaks and valleys" and that we would need to rely on our "rainy day fund" eventually.

Next time those of you who have a conniption and begin hollering for a "refund" of "your" money every time the government is running a surplus, remember this!

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Blogger vs Wordpress

I know most people that use Wordpress say it's infinitely better than Blogger, except for the fact that Wordpress isn't very customizable (at least as far as Java apps and html go) unless you self host and use Wordpress.org. The lack of html customization options is the ONLY reason keeping me away from Wordpress for so long, but a friend recently offered to host my blog and set me up on Wordpress.org - so I am happy to announce that I will finally be moving to Wordpress in the next couple of months once I build the site out and get settled in over there. I'll keep updating as to my progress and when the switch will occur. Until then, I'll continue posting here on a regular basis. :)

Hillary goes after Obama over debates, again

She is obsessed! 18 debates so far and more to come and she's upset because he "won't debate the issues" in Wisconsin:

Hey Hillary, why don't you debate yourself (you can even do it with your friends over at at Fox News!):

Friday, February 15, 2008

Ron Paul followers attack teacher over blog

This is absolutely hilarious! Looks like the craaazy Ron Paul followers have gotten so upset over a blog posts from a school teacher that they've posted his name, telephone number and even his address on the Ron Paul forums on his web site of defeat. Check out the teacher's blog post:

This week my math students are working on graphs and charts. Since Virginia held its primaries on Tuesday, I decided to work a little social studies into the lesson by using election figures as the data. I'd have liked to use Virginia's figures but since people were still voting here that wasn't possible. Instead I used national delegate counts for both parties and made bar graphs and pie charts to show visually how Clinton and Obama were neck and neck (with Edwards way on the bottom) and McCain was kicking everyone's ass.

Then I talked about how those were national results but every state voted on its own and every state was different. I talked about how Obama crushed Hillary in Illinois and Hillary stomped Obama in New York and Delaware was more or less even and how all the states that voted so far combined added up to an even race. Then I posted the results of the most recent primary then available (Louisiana) to show how different statewide and national races could be, showing a big Obama win there and a narrow Huckabee victory even though he was getting squashed nationally.

Then we talked about line graphs showing change in a single measure over time and I used what I could remember of Republican polls going back to last year to show the rise and fall of candidates' fortunes. I made up my data, but made sure it followed the general trends. Giuliani's lead in the polls disintegrating as the months went by, McCain's free-fall and revival, Huckabee's rise, and Ron Paul's Ron-Paulitude.

That was actually the best part for me -- getting to make fun of Ron Paul and getting all the students to join in. Didn't even have to attack his assinine policies, just showed him on the bottom of the GOP opinion polls month after month, and every time I added a new month's worth of Data and talked about the other candidates rising or falling, and extending the lines on their graphs, I'd end with "and Ron Paul stayed flat" and add another segment to his straight line near the zero marker. The kids loved the running gag. They started to join in, chorusing "and Ron Paul stayed flat!" Some of them even got a little impatient as I talked about the rest of the candidates: "and what about Ron Paul?" "He stayed flat." Cheers. :-D "And Fred Thompson dropped out of the race, dropping his numbers to zero, so Ron Paul finally got ahead of someone." Laughter. It was sweet.

My biggest regret was that one of my students asked me what the difference between the two parties was, but since it was technically a math lesson I couldn't switch over to civics entirely and fully answer that -- or answer at all at the time, really. I did get to talk to her about it a little in the hallway later, but didn't get to lecture the whole class. Ah, well, can't have everything.

And what did the Ron Paul losers have to say in the comments?
  • Shall we? 1 socialist parasite + The Internet = Another worthless article on the internet that nobody cares about. Have a nice day!
  • There is a very good reason that what you are doing with your graphs is not only wrong, but unethical and illegal. I see no problem with using polls as a teaching aid, but when you interject opinion, you are serving these children a personal agenda. That is wrong. Unfortunately, you have spoiled a good opportunity to teach by coloring your project with your personal preferences. You now need to select a subject for your graphs that is objective and stop teaching in a subjective manner. I am a taxpayer and it is not up to you to try to politically influence the young impressionable minds of children at my expense.
  • You are absolute SCUM!! Making "fun" of Ron Paul? The only honest candidate in the race, who is not bought and paid for like the other hacks. The only candidate with REAL solutions to our massive problems. Shame on you. Unbelievable!!
  • Another ideologue educator destroying young minds. You are hateful and stupid. Sad.
  • HAHA they're so silly. What this teacher did was neither illegal nor dishonest, you know, since he used actual numbers from the election to teach the graphs and all. I'm so sorry that facts pain Ron Paul supporters so much.

    The teacher even edited his blog post to add the following:

    Edit: in response to the spamming by mostly anonymous Paultards I've reset the comment status on this post to friends only.

    Read more:
    [Ron Paul supporters are lunatics!!]
    [Ron Paul is [still] insane]
    [Ron Paul supporters are nuts (Part 3!!)]

    [h/t Wonkette]

    Thursday, February 14, 2008

    George Bush is a liar!

    Happy Valentine's Day from John McCain!!

    A sneak peak into what a John McCain presidency (:shudder:) would look like:

    John McCain's straight talk double talk express

    [h/t Kicking Ass]

    GO GREEN!

    Hundreds of reasons to go green. Enjoy!