Good day and welcome to DKos Asheville. This is the weekly DKos Asheville open thread when we get together every weekend to share with everyone what we're all up to in Western North Carolina and beyond. We hope this group serves to invigorate us locally and regionally here on Daily Kos, building on the sense of community that's grown through our online engagement. DKos Asheville can give us all a better sense of connection, a better understanding of who we stand with, work with, and share with. We hope this community can help leverage our orange passion for progressive politics to elect more and better Democrats.
Asheville and all of Western North Carolina are wonderful places to visit. We have a powerful progressive presence, both cultural and political, and for the most part everyone is really nice. And the views are breathtaking. If you've never been here, we promise you'll love it.
As regular readers know, our next meet-up is scheduled for October 4th. We have changed the venue. Jump over the Squiggle of Local Power for more.
DKos Asheville Meet-up
Where: The Cantina at Historic Biltmore Village in Asheville.
10 Biltmore Plaza, Asheville, NC 28803 (828) 505-7682
When: Saturday, October 4th at 1:00 pm
What: A Kossack meet-up with food, fun and discussion. We will be thirty one days away from the election on Tuesday, November 4th. Please bring your ideas on how we can motivate voters and do our parts to help win these elections.
What to bring: A hungry tummy ready for great Tex-Mex on us, smiles, stories and ideas for GETTING OUT THE VOTE.
RSVPs:
1. randallt
2. davehouck
3. Joieau
4. Lamont Cranston
5. DawnN
6. SteelerGrrl
7. SteelerGuy
8. swhelden
9. Ottery Scribe
10. Burns Lass
11. Family guest
12. smiley7
13. people power granny
14. Gordon20024
MAYBEES:
1. Munchkn
Please kosmail me to be added to the list and drop by today's Connect! Unite! Act! for stories about other meet-ups across the nation. Get inspired, let's win these elections!
Here are a few local items I thought you might enjoy.
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Fracking the mountains plan put to rest! Great news out of Raleigh.
The state has retreated from its plan to collect rock samples this year in Jackson and the other far-western counties to test for indications of shale gas deposits.
The presence of such deposits could have led to fracking in the region.
“We are focused on exploring and developing the basins with a likelihood of finding shale gas,” wrote Donald van der Vaan, chief deputy secretary of the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources, in an Aug. 21 memorandum obtained by The Herald.
All sampling and analyses for shale gas during fiscal year 2014-2015 will be focused downstate: on the Deep River, Dan River and proposed Cumberland-Marlboro basins, according to the memorandum, written to Timothy Dale, fiscal analyst for the Natural and Economic Resources team of the General Assembly. Plans to test in Camden, Pasquotank and Bertie counties have fallen by the wayside, too, according to DENR’s Bridget Munger.
What is it with plagiarism with these guys? Maybe they are just lazy. Or maybe they just don't care.
ASHEVILLE- A company owned by state Rep. Tim Moffitt, R-Buncombe, lifted passages without attribution from other sources and used them in material for use on other legislators’ websites, a liberal Raleigh political group has found.
The analysis by Progress North Carolina found about 75 instances in which articles InTouchNC produced contained passages apparently copied from other sources with few or no changes and no attribution to the original source. Some were only a sentence or two, others long paragraphs.
“I think people deserve, when they’re reading something, to know where it’s coming from,” said Logan Smith, communications director for Progress NC.
Mysterious Phony Cell Tower in Asheville area could be spying on calls. Intrepid
Ashevegas reporters follow up on recent articles by
Wired and
Popular Science concerning intercept technology now deployed across the nation including Asheville.
Map showing the location of rogue cell towers identified by the firewall on Cryptophones in August. ESD America. Rogue cell phone towers can track your phone and intercept your calls, and it’s only a matter of time before they’re as ubiquitous as GPS trackers. But at least now there’s a way to spot them.
A firewall developed by the German firm GSMK for its secure CryptoPhone lets people know when a rogue cell tower is connecting to their phone. It’s the first system available that can do this, though it’s currently only available for enterprise customers using Android phones.
The problem with rogue cell towers is widespread. The FCC is assembling a task force to address the illicit use of so-called IMSI catchers—the devices that pose as rogue cell towers. But the task force will only examine the use of the devices by hackers and criminals—and possibly foreign intelligence agencies—not their warrantless use by law enforcement agencies bent on deceiving judges about their deployment of the powerful surveillance technology.
And finally a little fun from our amazing city.
Dozens of celebrants Tuesday night donned habits to mimic Asheville’s iconic Sister Bad Habit and sip a new beer named in her honor. The amber beer was a collaboration between two of Asheville’s great craft breweries – Thirsty Monk and Asheville Pizza & Brewing. It honors Sister Bad Habit a character created by Jim Lauzon of the LaZoom comedy bus tour. The naughty nun is so beloved that she’s practically a spokesmodel for Asheville aka Sin City. And this comes just as Travel + Leisure named Asheville the quirkiest town in the U.S.
You should not be surprised, we did pick up a great award lately:
Americas Quirkiest Town
No. 1 Asheville, NC
Is it the thinner mountain air or that the locals are standing too close to a vortex? Either way, these North Carolinians are tops for eccentricity thanks to both old and new charms: the vortex-laden terrain, which purports to send off good energy; the Friday night drum circle in downtown’s Pritchard Park; and the seemingly bottomless love of local beer. To tap into their vibes, try the beer-and-moonshine “hoptails” at Grove Park Inn’s Great Hall Bar, the BRÖÖ shampoo at the Earth Fare shop, or the port cake at Short Street Cakes. Asheville also ranked in the top 10 for great bakeries; Vortex Doughnuts offers a local beer-of-the-day donut.
I hope you enjoy today's Asheville visit, see you on October 4th!