Seth in CA (for the summer)

Unicycling

No comment.

More evidence for the strange world in which we live

Update: Benjamin Brigit-Fishbein has confirmed our friendship on facebook. I hope he doesn’t mind me reposting a tiny bit of his profile:

I’ll say. The Brown Daily Herald has more.

Word of the day

This weeks’s word of the week is “confabulate” (by way of Ha’aretz). Definition #2 is the more interesting one:

con·fab·u·late (kən-făb‘yə-lāt‘)
intr.v., -lat·ed, -lat·ing, -lates.

1. To talk casually; chat.
2. Psychology. To fill in gaps in one’s memory with fabrications that one believes to be facts.

[Latin cōnfābulārī, cōnfābulāt- : com-, com- + fābulārī, to talk (from fābula, conversation; see fable).]

Which reminds me: I forgot to about Friday abstract art blogging! Or did I?

Another blog covering this race

And I thought I was alone. Turns out there’s yet another blog covering the race in CA-26:

In 2004, Dreier outspent Matthews 50 to 1 yet received the lowest percentage of the vote during any of his elections since 1980. 2006 is the year to remove him from Congress. Click here, here and here to remind yourself of some of the reasons David Dreier must go.

Nice to see someone with a healthy sense of optimism for once. As for me, a redesign of Matthews’ website would really, really make me happy. Hmm…

“Advice for the Democrats”

Question: Any guesses on who gave this advice? Answer in the extended entry.

The war in Iraq is over except for the dying. Campaign for a date to bring our forces home. Speak for Americans on big issues like gas prices, health care, the environment and alternative energy. Don’t be afraid to say we’re for the people, not the powerful. Be Democrats — for a change.

Continue reading “Advice for the Democrats”…

Decided to check who was linking to me…

There’s a class at Cal State blogging the same congressional race as I am??? How did I miss this in my obsessive Technorati / Feedster searching? Here’s my favorite post:

Quick note about Cynthia Matthews victory…

Don’t feel obligated to change your papers that were written assuming a Warner victory. From an educational standpoint, the exercise is still useful (even if Warner is not going to be the actual nominee).

As for why this happened, we’ll have to talk about this in class briefly on Thursday, before the final.

Surprises are always fun in politics.

Keeps it interesting.

-Prof. Dark

Alas, the same could be said about my blog, but I didn’t get to talk about it with anyone in class on Thursday (on Thursday, I read more papers about WDM). Prof. Dark has linked to my none too comprehensive attempt at a post mortem and speculation about a push poll. Any other thoughts, class?

The strange world in which we live

Fatah “activists” (Ha’aretz’s word, not mine) kidnapped someone named Benjamin Bright-Fishbein, possibly from a coffeeshop in Nablus. Once they realized he was an American and not an Israeli, Brigit-Fishbein was handed over to the IDF. Brigit-Fishbein had been studying at Hebrew University and was in Nablus as a tourist. Now I say we live in a strange world because the Ha’aretz story says this:

An individual with the same name is known to be a student attending Brown University in the United States. His name also appears as a contributor to the web site of the university’s student newspaper.

Not only is an individual with the same name attending Brown, he’s on facebook. And the weird picture (sorry, I don’t want to get in trouble for reposting it) makes it pretty clear, at least to me that this is the same person. It depicts him smiling next to some graffiti on a stone wall of a Jewish star and the letters “Fuk”. Whatever that means.
Good to find out he’s safe. Needless to say, I’ve friended him on facebook. We’ll see what happens once he gets out of IDF custody.

Rockets!

We spent a couple hours at ROCstock today, out in the Lucerne Dry Lake, 2848 feet above sea level (that’s high). Here are some pictures. Someone with a better camera took pictures too, and I’ll post them if I get a hold of them:

Continue reading Rockets!…

Friday abstract art blogging

Hooray for technological confabulations (this post was actually authored on Sunday since I forgot about Friday abstract art blogging):

Kandinsky’s On White II (1923). Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.

Find out more about Wassily Kandinsky.

$40k Push Poll?

So far, this is the most intriguing of answers to my question about how the Warner campaign lost it. I wonder where I can get another source on this (from the comments on my MyDD diary):

Wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t heard it myself, but Wes Clark – here in Vegas for the YearlyKos – claimed that Dreier put $40K into a last minute push poll to eliminate Warner

Not terribly surprised if it is true. Matthews is about as an inept as they come. I know quite a few Dems who held their nose and voted for Dreier after hearing the hate she spewed on John and Ken in 2004.

by Estlin on Fri Jun 09, 2006 at 03:16:02 AM EST

(Emphasis added.) How detailed are campaign finance records? Would $40,000 show up as an expenditure if they’re following the rules?