Category Archives: Politics

Accountants, Lawyers & Congress

Leave a reply

Venture capitalist Brad Feld has a blog post called The Accountants Strike Back in which he has a series of observations that begin with "Accounting is the only profession where…" Let’s just say he’s not high on the accounting profession.

I’ll give you some samples below and you tell me if you agree that for most of them you could substitute "law" or "being a member of congress" for "accounting" and still be completely accurate.  To me these "industries" might be the true Axis of Evil:

Accounting is the only profession where you can completely screw
everything up (see Enron, WorldCom, Kmart, etc..) and your “punishment”
(so long as you aren’t Arthur Andersen) is that the “powers that be”
enact all sorts of legislation (SOX, Option Expensing, 409A, FASB 123,
etc.), that create a full employment act for your profession, radically
increase your fee structures, and make everyone in your profession
better off than when everyone thought you were doing a good job and
maintaining the public trust.

Accounting is the only profession that actively tries to get rid of
most of its clients, but at the same time tries to bleed every last
cent out of them on their way to being fired.

Accounting is the only profession that doesn’t care if their processes
negatively impact your business, what your opinion of them is, or
whether or not you are a happy customer.

Accounting in the only profession whereby a new regulation comes down,
a client alert is sent out and not a single client can understand
anything that is on the printed page.

Virginia Gentleman?

Leave a reply

Virginia_gentleman_bourbon
I was in college the first time I encountered Virginia Gentleman and it knocked me on my butt.  My latest encounter with a different form of Virginia "gentleman" was yesterday when I saw the video below of Virginia Senator George Allen on his campaign tour.  It also knocked me on my butt because it introduced me to the term "macaca", which apparently is a racial epithet and it showed once again how quickly a political campaign can turn.

Allen called the cameraman, an American college student of Indian descent who was filming Allen on behalf of Allen’s opponent Jim Webb, "macaca" and at one point said "welcome to America and welcome to the real world."  Since this was a predominantly white, rural Virginia crowd a lot of people think Allen was making a racial remark and Webb’s campaign is playing it to the hilt.

Now this thing has gone national, and not in the positive way. There’s a great piece on the Daily Show about it and Allen’s comment was even the subject of a question at a White House press briefing. It has also provided a reason for people to bring up Senator Allen’s confederate flag wielding days, none of which is good for a political campaign in 2006.  Ouch.

As you can tell from this exchange at Ed Cone’s blog no one’s really sure if Allen even meant anything specific by using the term "macaca", but as always the Daily Show had it right when they said (I’m paraphrasing), "I don’t know what macaca means but it sure as sh– sounds racist and in Virginia that may or may not be a bad thing."  I love that show.
 

Does Evangelical Christian = Republican?

5 Replies

There’s a fascinating article in the New York Times (found via Ed Cone) about a pastor at an evangelical mega-church in Minnesota who denounced the practice of churches closely identifying with a particular political party or getting involved in political issues.  The pastor, the Rev. Gregory A. Boyd, refused to allow anti-abortion activists to set up tables in the church, refused to endorse political candidates or to allow pamphlets for candidates to be distributed and eventually gave a series of sermons titled "’The Cross and the Sword’ in which he said the church should steer clear of politics, give up
moralizing on sexual issues, stop claiming the United States as a
“Christian nation” and stop glorifying American military campaigns."  In the process he lost about 20% of his congregants and a church fundraising campaign fell well short of the church’s goal, but he says he has no regrets.

What is most interesting to me is that as I was reading the article I realized that I had assumed all along that all evangelicals are right-wing, super-conservative, pro-war, Bush evangelists.  I had fallen into the trap of lumping everyone into the same category, of not giving evangelical Christians the credit for being able to think for themselves.

Kind of scary how easy that is to do.

Interesting Al Gore Video Circa 1999

Leave a reply

Spike Jonze was retained to shoot some video of Al Gore for the 2000 campaign and was given access to Mr. Gore and his family.  The result was a 13 minute film (scroll down and you’ll find the video window) that never saw the light of day and I honestly can’t understand why.  The makers of the film think it could have literally swayed the vote and I think they might be right.  Here’s the website that posted the video with some explanatory text.  (Found via BoingBoing).

Sen. Stevens Should Fire the Aid that Prepped Him for This

Leave a reply

Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, the champion of the "Bridge to Nowhere," got up in front of God and country to defend his stance on the telecommunications bill working its way through Congress.  Here’s a brief excerpt from Wired:

I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10
o’clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?

Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially…

They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And
again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It’s
not a truck.

It’s a series of tubes.

And if you don’t
understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by
anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous
amounts of material.

Huh?  Seriously, if the Senator doesn’t mind coming off looking like a dumbass then he’s fine, but if he does mind then he ought to fire whoever got him ready for this appearance.  No one expects him to understand all the technical nuances of the internet, but he should at least know the difference between "email’ and "internet".

Politician Puts Foot In Mouth, the Definition of Unsurprising

Leave a reply

A congressman from Iowa stuck his foot in his mouth when he said the following:

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, was discussing the June 7 death of terrorist leader Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi on Saturday when he mentioned 85-year-old Helen Thomas, who has covered the White House for nearly 50 years and is a columnist for Hearst Newspapers.

"There probably are not 72 virgins in the hell he’s at," King said about al-Zarqawi, in a recording transcribed by Radio Iowa. "And if there are, they probably all look like Helen Thomas."

Oops.

Vernon’s Gotten the Attention of Farkers

3 Replies

Well, there’s notoriety and then there’s notoriety.  Vernon Robinson has earned the “Dumbass” tag on Fark.com and about 250 comments that include some slams on him, but also veer into interesting and Fark-esque political debate.  Not that he should care, but it is interesting since a lot of those folks would normally be considered conservative (i.e. Republican) who take exception to his approach.  I think he’ll find a lot of moderate Republican and Democratic voters who feel the same way in the 13th District, which is why I think he’ll dominate the far-right vote and top out at about 30% in November.

Here’s a link to the article that started the discussion and here’s a link to the page with the radio spot they all found a little ridiculous. It’s called “Brad Miller’s Mariachi Party.”

Donations to 2004 Presidential Campaigns

Leave a reply

Here’s a cool little Google Maps mashup.  It shows the breakdown of donations to the Republican and Democrat presidential campaigns by zip code.  Here’s the breakdown for my zip code, 27023:

Total Number of Contributors: 26
Number of Democrats: 9
Money from Democrats: $5,310
Percent from Democrats: 19.762%
Number of Republicans: 17
Money from Republicans: $21,560
Percent from Republicans: 80.238%

If you visit the page of results you can also see a map with the familiar Google Maps balloons on them.  Click on the balloon and you can see exactly who gave how much to whom for each donation in the zip code.  Good way to see who your neighbors are supporting.

Here’s the breakdown of my brother’s zip-code, 22314, just a stone’s throw from D.C.:
Total Number of Contributors:
629
Number of Democrats: 326
Money from Democrats: $350,075
Percent from Democrats: 44.527%
Number of Republicans: 303
Money from Republicans: $436,142
Percent from Republicans: 55.473%

Wannabe Congressional Spam, Part Deux

2 Replies

Earlier this month I posted about a piece of SPAM I received from the campaign of Rory Blake.  Well, damnit, I just got another one from them.  Let me share it with you:

Subject: Let’s Do It!

Body:
$10 for Change

 
 This is your year: the year for change.


You can reclaim your government. You can make it once again a government of the people, by the people, and, yes, even for the people. It’s been a few years since you could say that, hasn’t it?


Yes, you
can reclaim your government, by changing it, one Congressional seat at
time – beginning with your own, North Carolina’s Sixth Congressional
District. You can help elect Rory Blake.


And if you were to do this, how much would it be worth to you?

How much would be worth to you to reclaim your government?

$10, maybe? After all, your share of the national debt is about $30,000. So $10 is not so much, is it?


Well, that’s what we need from you. Yep, that’s it: $10. Now, be honest, that didn’t really hurt, did it?

Why?
Well, let’s face it. No one knows Rory Blake’s name. But everyone knows
Howard Coble’s. So we need to get
Rory’s name out there, around the District. How? The old fashioned way:
signs and bumper stickers. And the new way: a Podcast. $10 from you is
what we need. Just click here to contribute.

$10 for Change.
Your contribution of just $10 will tell the people of this District
that Rory Blake is your
candidate. $10 will buy the signs and bumper stickers and Podcast you
need to do your part to reclaim your government. Amazing, isn’t it?
Just $10.
No joke. If everyone on our mailing list contributes $10, we’ll be able
to buy the signs and bumper stickers and Podcast we need.

Of course, we would very much appreciate a larger contribution, but, honestly, $10 will do it for now. After all, we are Democrats, not Republicans. And we are dealing with smaller vendors, not Halliburton.

When?
Now. Today. We need to start putting signs in our yards and stickers on
our cars and a Podcast on the Internet – today. Today. Click here to contribute. Now. Today.

How? This is the easy part. Actblue.com provides contribution services for Democratic candidates. Actblue
has collected millions for Democratic candidates all across America, and Actblue is collecting money for Rory Blake.
So you can trust Actblue when they ask for your credit card number. It’s quick. It’s simple: just click right here to contribute.

$10. That’s it. Not the thousands of dollars the PAC’s are giving to Howard Coble. Just $10. And all you have to do is click  here to contribute.

We can do this: $10 at a time.
To give yours, just click here.

Democracy … not corruption. That’s Rory’s promise to us. And that’s our promise to each other.

You can do this.
We can do this. We will do this.

Pass the Word.
We can make this happen. Forward this to everyone you know in the Sixth
District who wants change this year. Invite them to help make this
happen too. Tell
them to visit the campaign Web site, www.blake06.com. Invite them to contribute $10 by clicking here.


Remember, this is our country. This is our government. This is our year.

We can do this. No … We will do this. And with your help, we will begin today: click here.

I have to tell you that writing like this makes me wonder if he’s running for Congress or VP of the 10th grade class. My favorite line, besides the "Let’s Do It" cheerleading is, "Of course, we would very much appreciate a larger contribution, but, honestly, $10 will do it for now. After all, we are Democrats, not Republicans. And we are dealing with smaller vendors, not Halliburton." 

That’s the dumbest damn thing I’ve heard in a long time. Democrats don’t get big bucks from big business?  Please.  They’d be a lot smarter to play the outsider card, not the Democrat card.  Right now the general feeling is that those in power are dirty or corrupted by power regardless of their party affiliation.  They should play up their candidate’s outsider status and the fact that he isn’t a member of the club of the corrupted.  In fairness the message starts out with that theme but they can’t resist pulling the partisan card and killing it.  After all they might be able to pull in the independent or disillusioned Republican votes if they played it right.

Oh, and let me again point out that sending a partisan message to a stated independent who doesn’t even live in the congressional district their running for is probably not the best idea.  That tends to lead to pissy blog posts about how stupid you’re being.