I was in the process of compiling an e-mail to send to friends, family, coworkers, and others who may not know what DailyKos is to describe my Netroots Nation experience, but thought that kind of goes against the spirit of the blogosphere.  Some of you have been on this site for over 5 years now, but I wanted to write this in a way that give some insight into what this convention is about (in other words, very little "meta" or inside jokes, and maybe some unnecessary explanations for those who follow politics).  So here it goes!

UPDATED  Wow...the rec list.  There must be a bug in ct's code. Thank you all so much. And thank you to the organizers of Netroots Nation including Gina, Nolan, and Adam B - you outdid yourselves yet again this year.  I do not write many diaries, but I have been around these parts for even longer than my UID indicates so I really appreciate it. This community means a lot to me.

The latest pandering from Senator Clinton:

"I was raised with Midwestern values and an unshakable faith in America and its policies," she said. "Now, Americans who believe in the Second Amendment believe it's a matter of constitutional right. Americans who believe in God believe it's a matter of personal faith.

"I grew up in a church-going family, a family that believed in the importance of living out and expressing our faith. The people of faith I know don't 'cling' to religion because they're bitter. People embrace faith not because they are materially poor, but because they are spiritually rich.

"Our faith is the faith of our parents and our grandparents. It is a fundamental expression of who we are and what we believe."

Today my wife and I went to the Mexican Heritage Plaza in San Jose to see Senator John Kerry host a town hall meeting in support of Senator Obama.

Updated!  The 11th Hour is expanding on Friday 8/31.  Click below for details.

On Friday, August 2nd, YearlyKos featured a screening series that was sponsored by Warner Independent Pictures and Tree Media.  We were treated to two unreleased films ("The 11th Hour" and "In The Valley of Elah") and a clip from a 3rd film that premiers in 2008 ("The Chicago 10").

Due to transportation arrangements, I was only able to catch the first film that was shown:  The 11th Hour.

"The 11th Hour" takes an indepth look at the state of the environment from the expert's point of view. But it does more than put the earth under the microscope, it offers concrete and practical solutions for restoring the planet's ecosystem. Narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, this film will be on the 'must see' list for anyone who cares about the future of our planet

I hate malls.  One thing that seems to be consistent in America, whether you are in San Francisco, California or Decatur, Illinois, is the shopping mall.  A parking lot full of SUVs parked in the compact spots, parents with double wide strollers taking up the entire walking isle letting their kids run around and scream like maniacs, teenagers walking in groups yet each one is listening to his or her iPod or talking on cell phones, and the horrid pop music blasting from the clothing store trying to get you to spend $40 on a t-shirt that they paid someone in Indonesia $.06 to make.

I am the special age during a special time in history where every State of the Union address since I have been old enough to vote has been given by an evil, incompetant, worthless asshole.  Since Bush has come into office, the last Tuesday of January has come to be a day of depression and hopelessness.  The day serves as a reminder that half of this country's population is greedy, religiously insane, cold-hearted, biggotted, and/or racist.  It's also a great time to make sure that still the rich, old, white men are still in charge!  You know you will also be able to count on all the talking heads telling you how strong and manly Bush was during his speech pretty much until Mid-February.    

I like Bill Maher. I think his show is funny, and one of the very few places on TV where you can find a person who can give a liberal viewpoint in a clear and common sense fashion.  I also enjoyed his book "When you Ride Alone you Ride with bin Laden".  

Maher knows his stuff, and he has a unique ability to connect the dots, which, besides humor, is what I find to be one of his best skills.  Unfortunately, after watching the last two weeks of "Real Time", I have come to the conclusion that Maher just doesn't get it.

Some good points for your LTE's from tonight's debate, please add your own!!!

* Bush claims that sanctions and inspections do not work and attacked Kerry over this.  However, there were no WMD in Iraq...so didn't the sanctions and inspections work?  

Just wondering if anyone saw The Unauthorized Biography of Dick Cheney on CBC's "The Fifth Estate" last night.  I was only able to catch the last half of it, and it was absolutely damning.  Made me wish we had journalists in this country who knew how to do their job.  Anyone know if it is available for download anywhere, or if anyone recorded it if they could post it somewhere?

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/dickcheney/

is anyone watching scarborough tonight? al franken is on which is the only reason i tuned in...but scarborough just called Bush's performance last night a "disgrace" and that Bush "let down our allies overseas". he was "embarrassing".  he looked like a "junior high school jock who was thrown into a debate class by his parents."

wow.

This story may be seen as a continuation from

Trapper John's post "GOP to working Americans: Drop Dead".

Today, front page, the Detroit Free Press/Detroit News' front page declared "Working poor suffer under Bush tax cuts."  

http://www.detnews.com/specialreports/2004/taxes/index.htm

More...

ugh...if anyone is interested in spending their Saturday night being awesome like me, the 2000 Gore/Bush debates are on CSPAN right now.

I can't believe people fell for GWB's bullshit.  He is ripping Gore on how much government spending is going to go up under a Gore administration, his new programs will cost $900 billion and in order to pay for it, he will have to raise taxes or dip into the social security surplus! Who would have thought we would have a half trillion dollar deficit with GWB's small government, right?

There is a sad article in today's Detroit Free Press.  The title is "More Iraqis killed by U.S. than by terror."

http://www.freep.com/news/nw/iraq25e_20040925.htm

Now...the fact that they use "terror" drives me a little nuts, but the content of the article was sad enough to make me forget all about it.

Last night I went to see Unconstituional:  The War on our Civil Liberties, another excellent Robert Greenwald film.  It was sponsored by the ACLU of Michigan, and they were able to get Robert Greenwald to speak and answer questions after the film.

I was one of the nearly 110,000 people at yesterday's University of Michigan football game.  Disturbingly, I noticed that many people sitting in my section were wearing Bush/Cheney 04 stickers or the stupid "W" sticker where the W is composed of stars and stripes.

i hate to spew drudge, but this is the big headline on his page:

President Bush may skip one of the three debates that have been proposed by the Commission on Presidential Debates... MORE... Bush's negotiating team plans to resist the middle debate, which was to be Oct. 8 in a town meeting format in Missouri // audience of 'undecided voters' for second debate was to be picked by Gallup. Bush officials were concerned that people could pose as undecided when they actually are partisans, WASH POST planning to report in new editions, newsroom sources tell DRUDGE... Developing...

Bush is AFRAID of undecided voters. AFRAID someone might ask him a hard question.  AFRAID someone might bring up how 1,000 Americans died for his mistakes.  

John Kerry better damn well capitalize on this.

...in an attempt to get F911 shown on television before the election.  It sounds like it's a longshot since there are terms in the DVD release that would prevent it, but here are some cool quotes from Mike's article:

first it was the pretzel fall...then it was the segway fall...then it was the mountain bike fall...