Wednesday, June 18, 2008

The Champs Are Here



This is a photo of a Celtics schedule my roommates, friends and I have been working on the entire season. After every game we marked either a win, or a loss, which means we did 66 Ws and 11 Ls during the regular season. There wasn't a printable schedule for the playoffs, so we couldn't mark down the 16 Ws, and the insignificant Ls. It's all over the Celtics are the World Champions again. This is the NBA, where 17 happens.

Monday, May 19, 2008

The Dirt on New Dirt



Video Credit: Ryan Damon
Audio Slide Show/Article Credit: Jon Brandt and Daniella Bordonora

Friday, May 9, 2008

Blogger Response #16

This Sam Stein blog is a perfect example of why you shouldn’t write emails when you are angry. The battle for the superdegates has taken an unexpected turn which started on Thursday. Apparently Clinton supporters have attained an email list of undecided Democratic super delegates. Most of these emails claim that they have received email threats that if they don’t support Clinton that the people writing the emails will vote for John McCain in November. These emails are being sent, and the tone is that if the superdelegates fall in line with Obama they are traitors to the party. The blog had an un-attributed quote from a red-state democrat. This democrat said "I have been uncommitted throughout this campaign because I wanted to see how the candidates performed in a variety of settings. I am proud of them both. But I am horrified by this effort to threaten votes for McCain if super delegates don't vote for Sen. Clinton. I have received hundreds of emails from both sides - but I can say without exception that I have not received a single email from an Obama supporter that threatened a vote for McCain if I didn't support Sen. Obama. You really ought to be ashamed.” I don’t know if it was a good idea to accept an un-attributed quote, but it really does explain the situation perfectly. So, I guess Stein agreed that the quote was too good to left unpublished even though it isn’t attributed to anybody specially.

After receiving as she said 9 emails in one day campaign manager for Al Gore in 2000 Donna Brazille sent this response to claims that she was a traitor “I believe you're ready to not only destroy Roe versus Wade, voting rights, civil liberties and civil rights. Perhaps adding trillions more to the deficits through non-stop tax cuts to the wealthy and 100 more years in Iraq. Yes, please join Rush and McCain ASAP. The train has left. Catch it."

A Texas Democrat Shirley Luther explained the idea and how she will vote for McCain if Obama is the nominee. "It was a 'spur of the moment' idea brought about by a blog (Taylor Marsh),” Sam Stein had included a link to Marsh’s blog in case anybody wanted to read what inspired these people. “Tonight several of our bloggers came up with the idea of writing the super delegates. Someone on the blog found a list of emails and posted it.... Everything I wrote is the truth about my political background. The exit polls show I am not alone in refusing to vote for Obama and opting to McCain. This probably would not be possible if there was any other Republican running. But there are a lot of moderate Democrats who do respect his service." In an update of this blog post Taylor Marsh has denied any involvement in the campaign, and said that her readers are responsible for their actions no matter who inspired them to do it.”

These people claim that voting for Obama makes them a traitor? These people are claiming to vote for McCain instead of Obama. That’s actually traitorous, and it’s no wonder why the superdelegates responded with such anger. If you want to know what these idiots wrote in their emails check out Sam Stein’s blog I will not give them the satisfaction of writing their comments on my response to the blog. It would make me too angry and I wouldn’t be able to control what I wrote about it. In another update to the blog a spokesperson for Hillary Clinton Phil Singer, has denied any official involvement with this blitzkrieg of emails that has done more damage to Clinton then it has helped her.

Blogger Response #15

Review of Sam Stein’s May 8th 2008 Blog:

Obama Floated Idea of Voluntarily Capping Donations:


We have once again a very quote-loaded blog for my blogger response tonight. This blog is about Barack Obama and John McCain and the idea that they would use public financing in the general election.

Dave Donnelly national campaign director At Public Campaign Action Fund said “McCain opted into the public financing system in the primary and then opted out, then has slammed Obama across the country for this pledge he signed. But Obama never signed a piece of paper saying he would be punished for violating his agreement. That's what McCain has signed and he has gotten a free ride on it. The bottom line is, America needs a reformer in the White House and Obama has proven he will be a reformer by the legislation he's sponsored and his record on the issue. And McCain has clearly backtracked.”

This blog is based on news that Obama has considered using public financing. Obama gave that idea by saying “We need to separate money from political influence. It's an experiment in open source politics…One thing that I am considering, and my advisers might not like this: I may limit campaign contribution amounts per person to less than the federal limit in the general election."

The blog shows the response of many people in favor of major campaign finance reform. Joan Claybrook, president of the good-government group Public Citizen said “"I still believe Obama ought to lead the way and take public funding for these elections… What he is saying here is that he is going to do something to try and walk down the middle. But it is not really walking down the middle. In the general, you either take it or you don't take it."

Obama has said that he would follow up on his promise if and only if John McCain agrees to adhere to his promise as well. As the quote above says John McCain has already cancelled a contract for public funding, so I doubt he will agree to it now. Obama spoke on how great a presidential election would be if everybody had access to the same amount of public funded cash. Obama said public finance “takes power away from PACs, from lobbyists. It takes power away also from institutional players. Endorsements from a governor might not mean as much as it once did. Endorsements from some of the traditional institutional players, even those that are part of the Democratic Party, may not mean as much. That is actually a healthy thing."

Sam Stein also found somebody who does not agree that Obama’s system would be a better one then the one we currently have. Josh Israel senior researcher for the Center for Public Integrity's Buying of the President said that public finance in Obama’s system would basically make the people of America a special interest group. Israel goes on to say that public finance was established to level the playing field in the election. A popular candidate would be able to get more citizens to pay for his election, and therefore would destroy the playing field. Though he is technically correct I completely disagree with Israel. The whole point of an election is to get people involved and get people to the polling booths. What gets people more involved then investing? Do you care how good the stock of Yahoo! does? The answer to that question should be only if you own stock in Yahoo!. Voters would be more likely to vote for somebody if they have an interest in him or her. A person who is popular would have a better playing field? Isn’t that the whole point? Yes, it is the point. Nobody’s special interest means more then the interests of the American people. If the American people are a special interest group then they should be the only one allowed to the party with the poorly cooked chicken.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Blogger Response #14

A former host of the People’s Court thinks that Barack Obama is a loser. No, it’s not Judge Wapner it is Ed Koch a former mayor of the city of New York. Koch is a supporter of Hillary Clinton who believes that Obama will lose the general election in November. Koch believes that the super delegates should be used to give the election to Hilary Clinton. Koch believes that Clinton had the better chance of winning the general election in November against John McCain. Koch said “The reason the superdelgates are there is to select the person who is most likely to prevail…in all probability the super delegates will be afraid to exercise their own judgment and will simply go along with the count of delegates that were chosen in the polls.” This is news to me; I didn’t know we were polling for the Democratic nominee. I was under the impression that we were actually doing a little thing I like to call voting. Koch is suggesting that the people of the United States of America don’t deserve to have their voice heard. Koch is also suggesting that Obama doesn’t have a chance to beat McCain. I disagree, and so do the polls. I actually mean polls in the real meaning of the word, and not the fake definition that the former mayor of New York is using.

Koch takes Obama to task for the whole Rev. Wright debacle, and calls him a loser for not standing up and walking out on the preachers sermons years ago. Koch explained this by saying “"I'm absolutely surprised because I think that all the things that Wright says -- and nobody believes that Obama supports those statements -- but he didn't have the courage to stand up and object for twenty years. If you are running for president, you can't be like some other poor guy in the pews who is afraid to stand up or even say something privately to the minister. You're the guy who wants to lead the country and you have to have courage to stand up and lead your own pastor. He did not exhibit that. But the fact that the Democratic constituency doesn't seem to care is a shock to me, but I'm certain that the overall constituency voting in November will care and that it will make the difference in the adverse way to his candidacy.”

Koch also believes that Obama not walking out of Wright 20 years ago will cost him the election. Koch goes on to say “I believe that the vast majority of voters will look at all of these allegations, which nobody disputes, as related to Wright and his comments, and that they will have an enormous impact on the vote and on those Independents and others who will make a decision in the general election. I just think he is a loser because of that." I think being a fake judge on the People’s Court makes somebody a loser, but that’s just my opinion.

U-Mass Celebrates First-Ever Founders Day



Team Credits:
-Video Credit: Ryan Damon.
-Audio Slideshow: Jon Brandt.
-Photographer/Article Writer: Daniella Bordonora.