The credentialed blogs represent a large and diverse collection of voices and perspectives. The pool includes blogs covering national, state and local politics and those representing a variety of groups including the African American, Latino, Asian American, Native American and LGBT communities. Blogs focusing on youth issues, women's issues, labor issues, disability issues as well as those focusing on the environment and communities of faith will also be credentialed among many others.Here's the list.
Altogether, the DNCC will credential more than 120 blogs for the Convention and many more individuals will blog the Convention via credentials issued through the U.S. Congressional Press Galleries.
Maple Ridge woman missing since MondayOf course, I hope nothing awful has happened to this woman - beyond her already tragic inability to dress herself, I mean.
Police are reaching out to the public to help find a 30-year-old Maple Ridge woman who hasn't been seen since Monday.
RCMP say Monique Lampron was last seen leaving a friend's house in Surrey in a black 1993 Ford Probe.
Lampron is described as a 5'4" Caucasian woman with long blond hair and brown eyes.
Before her disappearance, she was wearing blue spandex pants and a white shirt with "who needs boobs" written on the front and "with an ass like this" on the back.
Anyone with information is asked to call Ridge Meadows RCMP at 604-463-6251.
More than 400 applications were received from bloggers across the United States and multiple territories. Some of the blogs selected for the State Corps are full-time, professional endeavors while others are the work of individuals, who through their own efforts have become recognized authorities on state and local politics. Bloggers had to submit daily audience information and provide examples of posts that made their blogs stand out as an effective online organizing tool or agent of change, a demonstration of both the reach and impact blogs have had and will continue to have on the 2008 election. The program recognizes the growth of more localized blogs and is in line with Governor Dean's 50-state strategy.But wait, there's more:
In addition to the State Blogger Corps, the DNCC will soon credential a General Blogger Pool, to include local, state and national political bloggers, as well as niche and video bloggers from across the country. All applicants not selected for the State Blogger Corps are now eligible for selection as part of the General Blogger Pool.Check out the Democratic National Convention website for the great list of progressive state/local blogs to bookmark.
Man uses gun for backscratcher, shoots himself
A Fort Worth man trying to scratch an itch on his back used a revolver and accidentally shot himself.
Jorge Espinal, 44, was drinking beer and playing poker around 3 a.m. Sunday in his home in the 3500 block of Montague Street when he got up from the table and walked into another room, said Fort Worth police Lt. Kenneth Dean.
“He told officers he had an itch on his back and grabbed the first thing he could get a hold of, which was a revolver,” Lt. Dean said. “The gun went off.'
Mr. Espinal went back and told his buddies that he shot himself. “They didn’t believe him until they saw the blood coming down his back,” Lt. Dean said.
Mr. Espinal was taken to an area hospital, where he was treated and released with non-life-threatening injuries.
A New York City man is suing JetBlue Airways Corp. for more than $2 million because he says a pilot made him give up his seat to a flight attendant and sit on the toilet for more than three hours on a flight from California.I'm guessing something's been blown out of proportion here because I cannot imagine this scenario going down as described.
So, how to know whether West Virginia is on its way to giving Clinton a narrative-changing win that will sway superdelegates, or at least prolong their decision-making process?In my humble opinion, no journalist or superdelegate worth his or her salt should consider West Virginia a possible narrative changer or decision maker. Why? This one quote here says it all:
"There are people who for some reason won't vote for Obama," said David Paleologos, who directed the Suffolk poll.Some reason? Really? We playing that game?
devoted love, support, and defense of one's country; national loyalty.Explain to me why a man who loves his country enough to want to run it is being forced to defend his patriotism:
[Obama] used his visit to Charleston to combat critics' claims that he is not particularly patriotic or ready to be commander in chief, in part because he never served in the military, no longer wears a lapel flag pin and opposed the Iraq war from the start.McCain's got Obama on the military service thing. I'll give him that. But opposing the Iraq war from the start gives Obama more credibility and good sense in my eyes, not less.
C. Truncation: Credit Cards, Debit Cards, Social Security NumbersNow, as someone who has had her credit card number stolen (twice), I am all for regulations that protect consumers from identity thieves. But a reasonable human being would inform the restaurant that its credit card machine was configured improperly and be done with it. Or at least one would hope. Instead, this patron decides to exploit and tax the legal system to the tune of thousands of dollars.
Credit card receipts that include full account numbers and expiration dates are a gold mine for identity thieves. In some states, printing of the full account number is already prohibited. For the future, FACTA sets a national standard requiring truncation of credit card information.
FACTA says credit and debit card receipts may not include more than the last five digits of the card number. Nor may the card's expiration date be printed on the cardholder's receipt.However, the effective date of this provision is a long way off, and there are a couple of loopholes:
This section does not apply to receipts for which the sole means of recording a credit or debt card number is by handwriting or by an imprint or copy of the card...
3. She underestimated the caucus statesIt's this sentence that bolsters why her "popular vote" strategy is so inherently shady:
While Clinton based her strategy on the big contests, she seemed to virtually overlook states like Minnesota, Nebraska and Kansas, which choose their delegates through caucuses. She had a reason: the Clintons decided, says an adviser, that "caucus states were not really their thing." Her core supporters - women, the elderly, those with blue-collar jobs - were less likely to be able to commit an evening of the week, as the process requires. But it was a little like unilateral disarmament in states worth 12% of the pledged delegates. Indeed, it was in the caucus states that Obama piled up his lead among pledged delegates. "For all the talent and the money they had over there," says Axelrod, "they - bewilderingly - seemed to have little understanding for the caucuses and how important they would become."
Her core supporters - women, the elderly, those with blue-collar jobs - were less likely to be able to commit an evening of the week, as the process requires.She knows it's harder to caucus than just show up and vote. Her campaign is well aware of why the delegate allocation is what it is. According to this article, Clinton's camp not only discounted caucus states from the get go, but then they went into full-on spin mode to try and marginalize the impact of the states whose voters did put in the extra effort.
SAN DIEGO - San Diego State University has suspended six fraternities after a sweeping drug investigation that landed members of three fraternities in jail on suspicion of openly dealing drugs on campus.How lame was my house? Our fundraiser was an annual pancake breakfast.
(...)
Profits may have been used to finance fraternity operations, according to an affidavit.
I'd made plans earlier with my friend cstone to meet him in the Chicago area, so I confirmed the plans with him and headed west. Not far from Chicago, I noticed that I was nearly out of fuel. I saw an exit marked "Gary - Riverboat Casinos," and surmised that where there are casinos, there was probably both easy access and tourist facilities.
Wow, was I ever wrong! Gary, Indiana is a hellhole filled with crack houses and oil refineries. It rivals Boys Town in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico for being the most terrible place I've ever seen. Where I got off of the freeway, it was impossible to get back on. There wasn't any signage indicating how to get back onto the freeway, either. Since the area looked extremely dangerous, I wasn't about to stop, but as I drove, the area kept getting worse. Finally, I saw a sign that said Chicago, and followed it. A couple of miles later, I saw another sign. Eventually, I arrived at the gaudily decorated riverboat casinos, and with the needle riding on empty, spotted Last Chance Gas, located just on the Indiana side of the state line. I filled the car, headed into Illinois, and called cstone.
"You're where?" said cstone, his voice a mixture of confusion and concern. "That's the second-worst part of Chicagoland, and you don't even want to know about the worst part. Get out of there, now!"
Is the fact that Obama's muslim and his pastor Christian a problem?The point his post tries to make:
It's a bit of a puzzle to me, though maybe it shouldn't be, that some voters seem perfectly able to hold in their heads simultaneously the notion that Obama's a Muslim and that his Christian pastor is a problem.The whole write is problematic, but it's the headline that makes my head spin. Read it. According to Ben Smith - who writes for an alleged news outlet - it's a fact that Obama's Muslim.
It’s not like the non-baseball services Washington provides are famous for their effectiveness. The potholes in the roads would embarrass a Romanian. The neighborhood papers are filled with complaints that violent crimes like carjacking and assault don’t rise to the level of police interest. (In 2000, when I reported being mugged during my first visit to the city, the police told me there was nothing they could do except check the Lost and Found once in a while for my wallet.) Our local library admitted that the online book-reservation system is not tethered to physical reality, and that in fact they have no real idea at any given time whether or not they have a book. It has taken us four visits to the Department of Motor Vehicles to come even close to registering our car locally.
