I attended a town hall meeting here in San Francisco last night and took this video of the panel answering questions about the light apple brown moth.

The panel included Nan Wishner, Mike Lynberg, Stacia Lansman MD, Dr. James Carey, Jeff Rosendale, Helge Hellberg, Penny Livingston-Stark, John Russo and Frank Egger.  The moderator was Kelly McMenimen.

As many of you know, several years ago the Bush administration decided that we needed more military protection to defend the homeland.

I know you've been waiting just like me to see how great a success that would be, as it seems to be important one way or the other.

We need your help!  A terrible, hungry moth has descended on California.  Yes, the Apple Brown Moth (ABM) has everyone from Arnold on down running scared and the only solution is massive widespread spraying of over a wide area of California.  ABMs are a danger to us all.

It doesn't matter that hundreds of people have  already gotten sick.  They are obviously weak, and should be culled from the population anyway.   The most important thing is not to worry the people running government or any of the large agribusinesses that are just too cash-strapped themselves to fund any research and must rely on the government.  Don't say anything.  Sshhh!

And don't do anything to stop the spraying that is forced on us by our government.  They should always be trusted no matter what and spend whatever money agribusiness wants them to.  Really.  It's only fair.

To do your part, just sit there.  Don't contact any of the people making the decisions, some of which are listed in this pdf.

Today's quiz:  Which is more accurate, the first article or the second?

The first article is from the BBC:

The Philippines has always had to import rice. Unlike neighbours Thailand and Vietnam, which have turned themselves into the world's two biggest rice exporters, successive governments in the Philippines have failed to invest in the agricultural sector.

link

The second article is:

The Philippines used to be self-sufficient in rice and other agricultural product.

link

I came across this interesting article today and figured some people may be interested and I have not seen it discussed around here much.

But the party's former leader in the House of Representatives will this month launch a national grassroots movement to combat the liberal activists who he believes outfoxed and outmanoeuvred Republicans to win the 2006 mid-term elections.
...

"In my business and political life, I have always believed you should study and learn from the enemy," Mr DeLay, 60, told The Sunday Telegraph
...

Next month is the mayoral election in San Francisco.

Last night I attended a forum in my neighborhood that included most of the candidates, and I brought along a camera in case anyone else would be interested.  The topics included homelessness, needle exchange, affordable housing, rent control, labor, and why Gavin was not there of course, but then looking deeper we can see things about our government, our society, and our elections.

Back in January I posted on the current plans of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Committee of the Senate.   The committee actually ended up not working on that.

The committee last met on June 26 and voted on Senate Bills 1671 and 1662.  If you listen to the broadcast, you should skip the first 19 minutes, which is simply a screen saying the commmittee is about to meet.  The vote takes place at about 50 minutes into the video.  Basically the meeting is waiting until the last 5 minutes for the vote, but while they were waiting the Senators took turns giving statements.

All 19 Senators voted 'yes', although many of them voted by proxy.

Yesterday while I was using the google, this page came up called FOIA Log.  Wow
that looks interesting I thought.  Maybe I should take a look in there and
see what it is?

How many of you know that your FOIA requests are public?  Probably not
too many I'd venture.  So if you're going to write to the DoD and ask about the aliens
(like so many of us do), well, everyone is going to know about it, especially
the aliens.  

I was born and raised in the Bay Area and I've ridden over most of it for the last 30 years.  I started back before it got popular like it is now.  Yeah, it's still not that popular.  But you should have seen it back then during the dark-ages of down-tube shifters.  It was like I was the only one riding through the hills.  I could still ride through Woodside, and over highway 92 to highway 1.

This committee, chaired by Senator John Kerry, is focusing on three issues this year: Health Care Tax Credit Act AMT Reform Increase Minority Entrepreneurship Opportunities This committee's decisions affect anyone that works for or owns a small business.

What a beautiful day we had today.  Perfect for a nice trip across the Golden Gate bridge.  Imagine my surprise, and those of the tourists and others that backed up at the roadblock set by the Highway Patrol, when we found we couldn't get across the bridge.

Of course cars could get across, since they are obviously more important than us with bikes and those walking.   Oh, and if you wanted to peacably assemble and walk across the bridge, you couldn't get across either.

So you want to center your images on the diary?  It really is simple.

See below for an example.

I find blogs fascinating, or more specifically I am intrigued by the people involved and the interactions that develop.  Like a small town that can only communicate through computers without seeing each other.  A big experiment that we are all participating in.

But people move around in this town, sometimes going to other towns when they no longer feel comfortable participating or for any number of reasons.  This diary explores the concept of Blog Dumping:  leaving one Blog and joinging another.

Most of us have probably seen 'An Inconvenient Truth' by now, or at least know that our planet Earth is reaching limits that are stressing our planetary system to the breaking point.   Once certain limits, the tipping points, are reached, positive feedback will create irreversible and rapid deterioration of our environment.  

Who are the people that don't believe?  Can we work together to solve problems effectively?  How do other species cooperate?  

Washington:  Today while in Vietnam Bush held a quick press conference to announce he has switched to the Democratic party.  After making a joke about agent orange and landmines, Bush said:

I signed up to be the leader of this Country, oh, the US I mean, not some lame duck president quacking by himself for two years without any power to do good.  I like hard work, as you know, and besides, I had this dream last night, and I just feel glad for me to be in the winning party again.  It feels good, and bipartisan, 'cause Cheney will stay a Republican.  It was either that or take a two year vacation.

Today on cspan there was a press conference with David Richards, NATO military commander for Afghanistan.  I don't know how many people caught it, they showed it a couple of times.

He's a British guy that just started in May, so you definitely can't blame how the situation is there on him.  This was his first press conference and all.  He's one of those guys that has gained that subtle ability to speak military.  You know, those military guys have a tough job and get the unfair association of everything they touch blowing up or getting holes in it and dying.  So they do have to put on a good press conference and I understand that.

August 19th, 1953.  The date when the prime minister in Iran was overthrown and imprisoned in a CIA-sponsored coup, which brought the Shah into absolute power and eventually to a dictatorship, followed by a revolution in 1979 to remove the dictator, and, as the Shah fled to the US, the Iranian hostage crisis that brought Ronald Reagan and the Ayatollah to power and to today's events, as in "why do they hate us so much?"

Last week in in another diary Benjaminwise discussed "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by John Perkins and it struck me that with the anniversary so close and the importance of Iran in the news today, a quick summary of the book and its lessons would be useful to those that did not know the story.

Today at the Judiciary Hearing, Abu Gonzales said that he doesn't investigate all leaks, just certain ones.  It turns out he has a questionnaire that he gives out with 11 questions, and those answers determine if he will investigate it or not.  

I then cross-checked it.  In the
Washington Post:

In August the agency completed an 11-question form detailing the potential damage done. In September, Tenet followed up with a memo raising questions about whether the leakers had violated federal law.

And then I found a copy!