Motley Moose – Archive

Just caught the following transcript, and felt like hitting something. Apparently Republican Senator John Goebbels Eichelberger thinks society is doing gays a pretty good turn by “allowing them to exist.”

Earlier last week, the world watched as the rogue Tamil Tigers group admitted total defeat in their thirty-year long conflict with the nation of Sri Lanka.

Or perhaps I should say, only a handful of interested people watched, while the rest of the world skimmed past that headline in search of the score of the Lakers-Magic game. Which isn’t all that surprising, considering that MSM outlets used the same language to describe the Lakers’ triumph over Orlando as they did the aforementioned Central Asian conflict.

So as the world shifts its attention to the latest of Lindsey Lohan’s antics, there is absolutely no reason to be interested in Sri Lanka. Case closed, conflict over, to the victor goes the spoils. Right?

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

This is a call for whatever rational people are left on the internet…we need to get involved in the healthcare debate.

The blogsphere isn’t helping the cause, with OpenLeft and DailyKos throwing in the towel with comments like “It’s obvious Obama is the enemy” and “is six months a record for a presidency to become a lame duck?”, and MyDD become infested with the worst of the PUMA, like sharks smelling blood in the water.

Tom Harkin has hinted he will be open to a healthcare co-op instead of a public option…this may doom the public option. Tom Daschle says the public option might have to be dropped

Aides to prominent political figures should NOT allow them to use Twitter.  Absolutely not.  If I worked on Capital Hill, I would not allow my boss to tweet.

Oh, but thank the Lord that they do.  Some politicos have really stepped in it with Twitter.  For example, after an embarassing Tweet sent during the State of the Union address, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) blamed his “foot-in-mouth” moment on an aide:

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) had the choicest Twitter moment. “Aggie basketball game is about to start on espn2 for those of you that aren’t going to bother watching pelosi smirk for the next hour,” he Twittered.

Or was it him? Shortly afterwards, another message appeared on his account: “Disregard that last Tweet from a staffer.” Both those messages are missing from his Twitter page, apparently deleted, but they were reported by PC World and several other news sites.

More recently, Newt Gingrich famously called Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor a racist.

This week, GOP Rep. Pete Hoekstra (MI) joined the ranks of the “I really wish I hadn’t tweeted that” when he compared life in the House minority to the uprising in Iran.

Glenn Thrush at Politico has reported that somebody decided to have a little fun with Rep. Hoekstra and set up a website based on the theme of Hoekstra’s over-the-top comparison of life in Congress to life under an intolerant,  repressive, and authoritarian regime.  Here is an image from the website.  It is worth a visit.

In 1989 the Chinese government had enough of the protesters occupying a huge square in the middle of its national capital, so they kicked out the foreign press, shut down communications and rolled in the tanks.

Well, they almost shut down communications…

In 2009 the Iranian government tried the same thing.  It didn’t work any better.

Arbor Networks provides a good view on Iran’s connection to the Internet via the Internet Observatory.  The fat healthy traffic to the left of the dropoff is what Iranian Internet traffic looks like at normal times, the cliff denotes the election and to the right of that you see traffic increasingly “leaking” past the imposed restrictions.

Carry on.

I have been following the Moose on my phone devise for the past few weeks and have been especially gratified to see all of the support and interest in the events happening in my former second home of Iran. Thank you all for the passion directed at the brave women and men of Persia these past few days.

I am so excited about the dialogue here that I have decided to call to have my internet hooked up as soon as possible.

That being said, I finally see the world recognizing the amazing strength, education and desire for justice I have always known Iranians possess. The scene of students protecting a fallen ‘enemy’ brought tears to my eyes and reminded me of the gentle yet strong people I grew to love during my time in Iran.

In the wake of the liberal outrage at Democrats, talk of a third party has popped up. Obviously most of it from Naderites and deadenders who never wanted a Democratic majority to begin with, but the talk is there.

But as much as I know some of you don’t want to keep pretending to be lackeys for the Democrats…third parties would be counterproductive and would hurt progressives more than Democrats. Here’s why;

Ladies and gentlemoose,

You may have noticed that our lovely purple banner is turning green! And unless you’ve been living in a cave (and likely even if you have), you’ve probably guessed that it has something to do with the current protests in Iran. The Moose has gone green to show solidarity and support for the Iranian protesters and for free and open elections. The protesters’ determination to see their votes counted, and their dedication to fair elections, is inspiring. It is indicative of real progress, and The Moose supports Progressives the world over.