Okay, so it isn't exactly late night yet, but we're nearing it anyway and I'm hungry and can't decide what to eat so I'm munching on raisins. I'm sure I'll be full soon enough, but all this thought about what to eat has me wondering about favorite foods. I am - some say - a picky eater. I don't necessarily want to own up to that distinction, but I suppose there are things I will and will not eat...
Anyway, tell me about your favorite food tonight.
This little boy has found his...at such a young age:
Welcome to Top Comments, where we recognize comments made in the past 24 hours that for whatever reason are just too good to let fall by the wayside.
If you find a notable comment during the day click the date/time stamp to get a direct link, copy it then send to topcomments at gmail dot com by 9:30PM Eastern! Don't forget to include your screen name so we can credit you! Anyone can submit comments- if you didn't do so today, please do it tomorrow- your as-yet-unnamed diarist will thank you!
Even if you could not vote in the WV primary today, you can mine for top Comments. (Note: if you are a WV resident who could have voted but didn't, then you must nominate extra to make up for your slacker behavior.) Send those goodies in today!
Sixty-four days until Netroots Nation!! I have my registration, hotel, plane tic... ::whisper whisper:: umm, and I'm buying plane tickets tonite. I am so excited that July is within sight!! I love seeing, hearing, and hugging everyone, and don't get me started on The Patio (tm)!! Erm, the speakers and panels and Official Stuff are pretty good too :-)
Not everyone can make it to Austin, though. Here's two alternative ways to meet your fellow Kossacks...
We have so many insightful and powerful diaries written here at Daily Kos. Our diaries inform, inflame, impassion, and even entertain. We Kossacks have strong voices and an even stronger will to be the change we wish to see in this country.
One of the richest, and perhaps most under-appreciated, areas of thought come in the form of comments attached to these diaries.
Here at Top Comments we strive to recognize and promote the talent of this community by highlighting outstanding comments found throughout the day by the diarist, and through nominations at made at TopComments at gmail dot com by your fellow Kossacks.
These nominations are subjective, and certainly not complete (as no one can read the complete site on a daily basis!). But we hope they will serve to shine a light where deserved, and to give the reader a good starting point in finding conversation on the site.
Please come in and make yourself at home! Join us beneath the fold...
I started this diary several weeks ago, when this story was new, but was never able to finish it. Now, tonight, it seems we are without a TC diarist so I am resurrecting it. :) I hope you enjoy it for what it is!
For me, no progressive value resonates louder or more clearly than goodheartedness and generosity of spirit. I very much agree with George Lakoff about the value and power of nurturance in society and politics. He recommends that we speak to the nurturant elements of our fellow human beings to activate and reinforce the progressive elements of their world view. I agree with that, too. For me, one of the clearest paths to the humanity of another is through animals, specifically beloved pets.
Tonight’s diary was going to be more focused. Actually it was going to be on an entirely different topic. However, Mother Nature had other plans. In the past 3 hours, I have seen:
20 minutes of hail the size of quarters or larger
45 minutes of torrential rain (1+ inches)
reports of 14 tornados within 5 miles of my house
And despite the usually stellar performance of the weather service here, there was no warning. The only heads-up I got was from my dog, who suddenly freaked out. About 20 seconds later a wall cloud descended and it started to hail. It was another 4-5 minutes before an alert was issued and another 10 minutes before the sirens sounded. By then, I had already seen one funnel cloud. Given that there was a girl killed by a tornado about 15 miles from my house last Sunday, this is turning into a really bad spring for storms.
Some day -- perhaps next Saturday -- I'll find the diary I had written for tonight. But for now, let’s talk about climate. Or, more precisely, let’s talk about ClimateCounts.
On January 3, 2003, three months (and a few days) after Steve Soto first commented on Daily Kos, Markos made an announcement:
Introducing the first dKos guest contributors
Greetings everyone. Work and the Political State Report have been keeping me busy. So busy, in fact, that I have lined up two guest contributors to pick up my slack over the next two weeks.
Long time readers will recognize the guest contributors immediately: Billmon and Steve Soto, both of them comment board favorites. The two of them will essentially take over this site starting tomorrow (and may start posting as soon as today). I'll still post occassionally, but in effect this will be their site for the two-week period.
Try to be nice.
Update: Posts written by either Billmon of Steve will be signed by their respective authors. If you see a post with no signature, it's still me.
Posted January 03, 2003 09:28 AM
Yes, it should have been "Billmon or Steve" in the update, but typos happen. So do jumps. One right about...now!
It was the last day in September, 2002, and Yahoo News was reporting that embattled New Jersey Senator Robert Toricelli would announce his decision that afternoon on whether he'd withdraw his candidacy for re-election a mere 36 days from then on November 5th. This was big news, and Steve Soto made his first appearance right after a commenter named Zak suggested Bill Bradley as a replacement :
Zak stole my thunder. Why not Bradley? It's not like he's going to run for President again, right? And he would be a cinch compared against Forrester. With Clinton out of the White House and McCain/Feingold addressing some of the unpleasantness he found in politics, he may be induced to come back for a term or two. He's still young, and can be a player once again.
Posted bySteve Sotoat September 30, 2002 01:07 PM
As it turned out, we ended up with a different former Democratic senator, Frank Lautenberg—the following comment was Markos reporting that Bradley had "emphatically refused to be considered". But we also ended up with Steve Soto: a win/win situation. Steve's many 2002 comments are all linked to over the jump.
Welcome to Top Comments, where we recognize comments made in the past 24 hours that for whatever reason are just too good to let fall by the wayside.
If you find a notable comment during the day click the date/time stamp to get a direct link, copy it then send to topcomments at gmail dot com by 9:30PM Eastern! Don't forget to include your screen name so we can credit you! Anyone can submit comments- if you didn't do so today, please do it tomorrow- your as-yet-unnamed diarist will thank you!
Even if you are not an undecided Superdelegate, you can mine for top Comments. If you are an undecided Superdelegate, your submissions will count double. So send those goodies in today!
This morning as I got my daughter ready for another episode of As Fourth Grade Turns, she showed me the book she was reading. She said she had to read it "soon" because the school librarian volunteer parent had to take it back to the town library. Whaaa? Turns out my daughter has waited patiently for her turn with this book, but the school library closes this Friday. So the volunteer went to the town library, checked it out, and will take it back after. I appreciate the effort, but here's my issue..
It has been a long day Chez emeraldmaiden. I've been up since before dawn, and this is TOTALLY unlike me, let me tell you! I happen to believe in sleeping in. By 6:55, I was in the car, with all of my shipping loaded in the trunk, and on the road to my aunt's house.
Where I sat, waiting for the cable guy.
And sat.
And sat.
Five minutes before the end of the two hour window the company had given, the guy finally showed. He did his thing for an hour or so, and then had to call for help. Thirty minutes after THAT, he was done and gone. The funny thing was, he bore a certain resemblance to Martin Mull. Straaaaange.
Republican Sen. John McCain has been forced to clarify his comments suggesting the Iraq war involved U.S. reliance on foreign oil. He said he was talking about the first Gulf War and not the current conflict.
Awww! That is soooo sad! But he has not been forced to clarify them ENOUGH. If you can’t stand the heat, Mr. McCain, perhaps the presidency is not for you. Word to the wise. And to you, too.
"My friends, I will have an energy policy that we will be talking about, which will eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East that will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East," McCain said.
Why not talk about it now, Mr. McCain? Is that because your energy policy doesn’t yet exist?
Last night Progressive Witness had a wonderful post about the Loneman School Book Drive. If you missed it, you owe it to yourself to check it out. I was particularly struck by this comment about the Indians of North America book series from Chelsea House:
While any books we send will surely be put to good use, I can think of few resources that might be more valuable to Loneman's library than this accessible, scholarly, and extensive series on Native American history and culture.
While I absolutely agree, it also made me think. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if EVERY school library had a set of these books? I am not familiar with the series (and it isn’t in my public library, either), but I will take PWs word on its quality. In my experience, quality information about Native Americans is largely missing from most of our schools.
A nonpartisan (and, at least theoretically, apolitical) event, by request.
My essay in Tuesday night's Top Comments: Little Katrinas was a brief sketch of Shannon County, South Dakota, which is part of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, home of the Oglala Lakota Nation. To recap: Shannon County is frequently the poorest county in the nation, and is currently the second poorest, and is still in many ways recovering from the impact of a 1999 series of tornadoes.
I also mentioned Loneman School in Oglala, where Nikki Pipe On Head estimates as many as half of their students qualify as homeless due to the dilapidated state of their homes.
In that diary and comments, I hinted at the topic for tonight, the efforts of one group of South Dakotans (and friends from around the country) to make a difference for Loneman School: the simple, but ever-worthwhile book drive.
Below the fold there's more, just like it says on the tin.
I know, who would imagine that factory farms could have an effect on anyone besides the animals themselves? But according to the recently released Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, industrial animal farming has quite an effect in many areas. You can read the full report at the link above.
Here are some excerpts.
On Public Health:
Over the past five decades, the number of farms producing animals for food has fallen dramatically, yet the number of food animals produced has remained roughly constant. It is the concentration of farm animals in larger and larger numbers in close proximity to one another, along with the potential of IFAP facilities to affect people, that give rise to many of the public health concerns that are attributed to IFAP.
The impacts on the health of those living near IFAP facilities have increasingly been the subject of epidemiological research. Adverse community health effects from exposure to IFAP air emissions fall into two categories: (1) respiratory symptoms, disease and impaired function, and (2) neurobehavioral symptoms and impaired function.
Welcome to Top Comments, where we recognize comments made in the past 24 hours that for whatever reason are just too good to let fall by the wayside.
If you find a notable comment during the day click the date/time stamp to get a direct link, copy it then send to topcomments at gmail dot com by 9:30PM Eastern! Don't forget to include your screen name so we can credit you! Anyone can submit comments- if you didn't do so today, please do it tomorrow- emeraldmaiden will thank you!
You can mine for comments no matter what candidate you support. As a matter of fact, it shows how much you love your candidate if nominate a comment. Send those goodies in today!
So, anything happen in the news lately? I heard something about this minister making a couple of speeches, and everybody seems to be politely expressing an opinion about it. Something to do with whites and blacks and colors? I had no idea...
We're so accustomed to brief frenzies of wall-to-wall national media coverage of all of the little Katrinas that happen around us from year to year--tornadoes, flash floods, bridge collapses, all the usual suspects--that we forget to notice, I think, whether we're told, later on, what ever became of all those miniature 9th Wards in small towns and forgotten rural corners.
Places like Shannon County, South Dakota.
More on this, and nifty things said today by Kossacks, in the Land Below the Fold.
Tip for today: When you put a couple of beers in the freezer to chill while you eat dinner, try to remember to take them out before THREE HOURS have passed.
Another Tip for today: Do not do as I did - I mean, do 'save' your diary-draft often - either use the diary-editor or a program that auto-saves when you're too dumb to do it. My computer crashed a little while ago and I lost a very fine diary. Unfortunately, I didn't recover in time to re-create it so you're going to get quickie potluck tonight.
While we at DailyKos tend to fixate on Presidential and Congressional races and issues, it’s worth pausing from time to time to look at local races and think about how they can have much more of an impact on our daily lives. As Tip O’Neill once said, "all politics is local." While he was talking about the way in which concerns at home shape representatives’ actions in D.C., it’s true that in terms of making a difference, each of us pretty much has to start on a micro-level in our own neighborhoods.
It was with this idea of shaping the politics close to my home that I decided to volunteer for Randi Shade, a candidate for Austin City Council Place 3. I know her campaign manager, Marti, as we live in the same precinct and are both delegates for Obama to the Texas Democratic Party Convention. I liked the idea of being able to have a greater impact on a race due to its size and proximity to, well, me.
With that in mind, yesterday morning I arose bright and early to block-walk for Randi Shade. Photos, videos, and a few anecdotes below.
We have so many insightful and powerful diaries written here at Daily Kos. Our diaries inform, inflame, impassion, and even entertain. We Kossacks have strong voices and an even stronger will to be the change we wish to see in this country.
My essay in Tuesday night's 
It was with this idea of shaping the politics close to my home that I decided to volunteer for 
