Carbon-Tracking Satellite Launch Failure

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Tuesday February 24, 2009 · 7:25 AM PST

2009/02/24 · 07:25

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory, a pioneering and very important satellite was lost today:

After lifting off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, a protective shroud holding the Orbiting Carbon Observatory failed to separate, dooming the mission. The extra weight caused the satellite to fall back to Earth. It splashed down in the ocean just north of Antarctica.

Hjiorst

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday October 27, 2008 · 5:16 PM PDT

2008/10/27 · 17:16

According to this latest poll, California Proposition 4, the Parental Notification for Teenage Abortions Act, is winning. With all the attention being drawn to Proposition 8, I'm afraid another horrible right-wing funded initiative might squeak in under the radar. It's the third time this tactic has been tried, and it must be fought back again.

Please donateto The Campaign for Teen Safety, and consider phonebanking, one of the best donations one can make. Phonebanking for an afternoon is like donating $400 that would have paid someone to do the same thing. Please spread the word to others about this anti-choice initiative!

Please mention No on 4 when you diary about No on 8! Not enough people know about this.

ADDED: Please Rec This Diary for the sake of promoting awareness! It is terribly under-reported.

Below the fold: How does buying wine help defeat the right of choice in California?

Hjiorst

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday September 17, 2008 · 9:45 AM PDT

2008/09/17 · 09:45

Today a group called Election Protection announced their plans to launch a massive effort to protect voters' rights. From TPM Election Central:

"This will be the largest voter protection effort in the history of the country," project head Jonah Goldman, a longtime civil rights and election reform lawyer, insisted in an interview yesterday with Election Central. The backbone of their effort is a hotline, 866-OUR-VOTE, that voters can call to have their questions answered, and to report problems.

This effort is desperately needed, and ties in with the actions of the DNC and the Obama Campaign in Michigan yesterday, where they sued to stop voter caging on the basis of foreclosed home lists.

I believe that voter suppression is the single biggest danger we face, and so have dedicated my Barack Obama Fundraiser Page to that effort.

Hjiorst

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday September 15, 2008 · 12:18 PM PDT

2008/09/15 · 12:18

Hi, this is a research diary, looking for anyone else who is having the same problems with Digg that I am.

It seems that Digg does not like (I won't say "Digg does not dig," sorry) my using Firefox on a Windows XP platform, with Service Pack 3. I am able to get on fine with IE, but that is not my default browser, and I prefer to stick with Firefox, thanks.

First, Digg wouldn't let me join, by not providing a semi-obscured letter/number image for me to interpret and answer for the question, "Are you Human?" Digg wouldn't provide a alphanumeric image on the "Bug report" page, either, and so finally I had to join on IE in order to Digg up an anti-Mcain video, and to make my complaint.

Having created an account, I cannot log onto it from Firefox. Whenever I go to a Digg page and click on "Digg it" it asks me to log in. I try to, but it just returns me to the original page, and I'm still un-logged-in.

Hjiorst

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday September 12, 2008 · 7:45 AM PDT

2008/09/12 · 07:45

There has been a war of sorts here on Daily Kos between those who are criticizing the Obama campaign for weakness since he won the Democratic nomination and those who feel that any criticism of our Dear Leader is inappropriate and that critics should just shut up.

I can't say that the latter's philosophy resonates well with the democratic portion of this community.

McCain/Palin is a big, fat target of opportunity for attacks on corruption, lies and incompetence, and the Obama/Biden camp seems to have Pelosi's Disease: An inexplicable lack of testosterone, a willingness to take advice from losers and one's enemies, and an inability to assert oneself on obvious issues, which reluctance grows more sharply in direct relation to how directly one is being attacked.

Poll

26 votes Show Results

I:

26 votes Vote Now!

I:

want Obama-Biden to win the war of image and impression in the media.

21 votes

want Obama-Biden to lose the war of image and impression in the media.

2 votes

believe that one can only win the general election by losing the image/media battle.

3 votes

TradMed Palin Online Polling: Vote Here

Hjiorst

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday September 04, 2008 · 11:19 AM PDT

2008/09/04 · 11:19

Hopefully it won't be long before news outlets stop doing online polls, considering their abject uselessness. To help further this end, and to let someone know, ...well, something... they may not have known... maybe... here are some polls to visit and vote in.

Considering that the whole night was devoted to her for the sake of Republicans, this ought to be at least 65% favorable to her. But she's not even breaking 50% at CNN.

Go here, vote, you can still win these vital contests!

CNN: How do you rate Republican VP choice Sarah Palin's convention speech?

MSNBC: Was VP pick Sarah Palin's speech effective in introducing herself and boosting John McCain's campaign?
(This one offers two negative options, and the positive doesn't address her actual skills, experience, etc.)

CBS: Has the media been fair on Sarah Palin?
(A gross false dichotomy if there ever was one! Of course, it's the ~~Cronkite~~ ~~Tiffany~~ Couric Network!)

Hjiorst

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday September 01, 2008 · 11:55 PM PDT

2008/09/01 · 23:55

As of tonight, it is way too early for me to tell just what the heck is going on in St. Paul with police raiding homes and arresting anyone not Republican who's exercising their civil rights. The few blogs here on Kos are sketchy, but they don't paint an encouraging picture. The Traditional Media is mostly ignoring the story, but they do report is almost exclusively about "Anarchists Smashing Windows", but there are a few reports about "Police Infiltrating Anarchist Groups" and raiding homes and collecting "Potential weapons," as evidence before anyone even hits the streets.

Can you Palinphiles quiet down just a little bit and let some real news get through? Something terribly important is happening, and this site is running three most rec'd diaries about Palin at any given time? How about some focus?

Please check out these diaries:

Smartinez

Valtin

Whitefish

And consider this a polite request for more info from the frontpagers about this story.

Hjiorst

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday August 11, 2008 · 10:02 AM PDT

2008/08/11 · 10:02

The word most often used to describe the attack on South Ossetia by Russian news media and by the Russian president himself is Genocide. Why then, in the four days since war broke out, has the US Media not even mentioned the accusation? Ask yourself; have I heard this word uttered by anyone on TV describing the situation? Read it in a headline?

Here's Medvedev himself, explaining their point of view:

"Georgia has exposed South Ossetia to a very crude and cynical aggression. People have died. Russian citizens have died, including local residents and peacekeepers. The actions of the Georgian side cannot be described as anything else but genocide.

"The information we have received suggests that horrible crimes were committed there. People were killed, burnt, run down by tanks, had their throats were cut," Medvedev said.

I have no doubt that if US News outlets would use this term, even just once in a while, even only in context of Medvedev's statement, that the prevailing US attitude would be very different.

Hjiorst

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday August 08, 2008 · 8:40 AM PDT

2008/08/08 · 08:40

Does this finally make the point?

Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr will call on his fighters to maintain a cease-fire against American troops but may lift the order if a planned Iraq-U.S. security agreement lacks a timetable for the withdrawal of American forces, a spokesman said Thursday.

The point being that The Surge was not primarily responsible for the cessation of violence; rather it was the al-Sadr cease-fire which initially took effect last August, the month before Patreaus's presentation to congress in which he took sole credit and mentioned Muqtada al Sadr not even once. (Full text at Real Clear Politics)

It would appear that Bush has little say in what happens in Iraq. Muqtada al-Sadr is calling the shots. And Muqtada wants a timetable.

Call this a "getting the complete story" diary.

Hjiorst

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday August 07, 2008 · 6:48 PM PDT

2008/08/07 · 18:48

Someone captured this off the air and posted it, after the Tinker Campaign scrubbed their site:

<div>

Nikki Tinker race baits Steve Cohen. @ Yahoo! Video</div> Read More

In Politics, The Appearance of a Problem IS a Problem

Hjiorst

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday August 04, 2008 · 10:56 AM PDT

2008/08/04 · 10:56

I don't know who said it first, or best, but I know its true that if the public perceives there to be a problem, then there IS a problem.

I'd like to discuss the Obama Campaign's response to the recent blitzkrieg of immature, inflamatory and downright racist attacks that our candidate has been subjected to and the media coverage thereof. I'd like to do this without the now predictable response from DKosers that basically amounts to, "Stop worrying, be quiet, give money and everything will be fine in the end." I'll pre-empt that by saying that I am not hyperventilating, nor am I unaware of all the polls and how Obama is ahead by wide margins in most areas, nosing out McCain on most others, and that the national trend polls reporting a "tie" have been looking awfully suspicious lately.

But it cannot be missed that the Obama camp does not have control of the national media narratives, in fact is doing piss-poor at getting his messages out.

Call this a "generally frustrated" diary.

Poll

49 votes Show Results

The Obama Campaign has been handling the national media:

49 votes Vote Now!

The Obama Campaign has been handling the national media:

Excellently

5 votes

Very Well

9 votes

Decently

8 votes

Fair to middlin'

5 votes

Not so good

13 votes

Badly

1 vote

Terribly

5 votes

Disasterously

3 votes

... and Thank You to Uhuru News!

Hjiorst

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday August 01, 2008 · 12:58 PM PDT

2008/08/01 · 12:58

(Their website: Uhurunews.com)

Without taking any side in their argument (that Barack Obama has not been outspoken enough about racial injustice issues in his campaign), I'd like to point out that the protest, performed with taste and decorum (as far as such interruptions go), gave Obama the opportunity to show the world how he responds to direct challenges; by not missing a beat, keeping his cool, allowing their voice to be heard, directly answering them, and maintaining civility and calm at the event.

Links and blockquotes below the fold.

Poll

65 votes Show Results

I think that Obama's handling of the International Peoples' Democratic Uhuru Movement's protest will

65 votes Vote Now!

I think that Obama's handling of the International Peoples' Democratic Uhuru Movement's protest will

Help Obama in national opinion polls.

32 votes

Not have any effect on opinions.

24 votes

Have a negative effect on Obama's ratings.

9 votes

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Carbon-Tracking Satellite Launch Failure

CA Prop 4: Abortion Rights Are Losing!

Election Protection Announces Launch - You Can Help

Is anyone else having problems with Digg?

Obama/Biden has Pelosi's Disease

TradMed Palin Online Polling: Vote Here

Can We Get Some Clarity On What's Going On In St. Paul?

American News Self-Censoship: Genocide

Muqtada Calling The Shots

Tinker Jew-Baiting Ad Reposted

In Politics, The Appearance of a Problem IS a Problem

... and Thank You to Uhuru News!