Matt Bostrom: Expect a landslide

And I quote from an Emmerish blogger, Shot in the Dark (i.e. right wing):

. . . Ramsey County Sheriff: Matt Bostrom will be the first endorsed DFLer I will have voted for since 1998. He may well be the last. Let’s make it count. (italics mine.)

Point: Matt Bostrom has won over every thinking person or person who knows his positions, personality, credentials, charisma, heartfulness and general brilliance, not just here in Ramsey County but all over the Metro area.

I went into the volunteer arena (after spending three days working for Mark Dayton at the Minnesota State Fair) convinced Matt COULD NOT WIN. I wanted to put in as much energy into his campaign as much as I possibly could.


Remember Sheriff DeFazio of Allegheny County, PA? The guy who aided and abetted the harassment of one of my heroes, Dr. Cyril Wecht?

Well, Bob Fletcher is just as sleazy in my book. Maybe more so, since SETTLEMENTS in civil rights cases against the Ramsey County Sheriff's office always have gag orders slapped on them. Thus, some wicked things are known only to a few handfuls of folks here.

I am not going to bring down my elation today. I am celebrating a new sheriff in town. I have come to the conclusion that perhaps this is a position that should not be on a political slate. Too easy for guyz with gunz to rip up lawn signs, put their own up illegally and evade The Truth. - and the law.

Good men like Matt fight an uphill battle as the position garners little media attention. Good thing Matt has a huge aura and a lot of die-hard friends and supporters.

"Evildoers beware, there's a new sheriff in town and you never know where he's going to show up next."

Us citizens are NOT getting the Time Shift sheriff at all. Nor the one in Blazing Saddles, although Matt is studily anti-racist. Nor is he Russell in Beverly Hills cop ... (links refer to the videos.)

Seriously - Matt may prove to be the best thing that EVER happened to Metro Minnesota. He's the best bet to manage a crisis - and there will be plenty in the years ahead such as brownouts, dissatisfied citizens, earth changes . . . the list is long. What we will get is management, service and leadership.

Be sure of one thing, we will be led by a man with capable hands, a heart and tremendous smarts.

This election landslide for Matt is a true win-win for all.

Gotta go - time to get my nails done in time for the victory party.

ps. It was not a landslide - as Randy said at the victory party:

It was an avalanche!!

Change Congress Project might be for YOU

Stanford Law Professor Larry Lessig Bets 'Wikipedia' Approach Will Transform Congress

By Sarah Lai Stirland March 20, 2008 | 3:39:25 PMCategories: Politics

Stanford law professor Larry Lessig plans to use collaborative software to change Congress.
Courtesy Larry Lessig

A prominent Stanford law professor on Thursday launched an ambitious project that aims to use collaborative software to harness the extraordinary levels of pent-up political energy and dissatisfaction that voters have shown over the past two years with their members of congress.

The Change Congress project's first mission is to diminish the influence of money in the legislative body by influencing the outcome of the 2008 election campaigns of 67 members of congress which are up for grabs. As the Change Congress project founder Larry Lessig noted in the project's launch Thursday afternoon, there haven't been so many seats open up for challenge in more than a decade.

Lessig, known for his decade-long role in trying to loosen the entertainment industry's vice-like grip on popular culture by shaping copyright law, is betting that the energy and dissatisfaction exhibited by voters against the status-quo in Washington DC, and the emergence of collaborative software that enables vast numbers of geographically-dispersed citizens to become politically active on their own schedule, will enable a new kind of transparency and accountability in political campaigns.

"The problem we face is ... the problem of crony capitalism using money to capture government," he said on Monday during the launch of his project in Washington, DC. "The challenge is whether in fact we can change this. The political experts tell you that it can't be done, that process always win over substance."

Lessig and Joe Trippi, who is a collaborator on the project, hope that it will bring the beginnings of this change by getting voters to challenge their members of congress to commit to the four pledges put forth by the Change Congress project. The project will rely on engaged voters to record and map responses by candidates who are running for open seats. The idea is to make what seems like an abstract idea visually tangible through a Google mash-up.

The professor wants legislators to promise to do four things which he says will reduce the influence of money on policymaking: To promise not to accept money from lobbyists and political action committees; support public financing of elections; commit to passing legislation to permanently ban the funneling of money to their districts' projects of questionable worth; and to commit to "compel transparency in the functioning of congress."

Candidates can signal their intentions to take any one or all of the pledges by filling out a form at the organization's web site, which then formulates code that provides a graphic that the candidates can then place on their election campaign web sites.

The Change Congress project hopes that citizens will track congressional candidates' positions on these issues by reporting on them at the web site. The project will then map these results onto a Google map. Writing in The Huffington Post this morning, Lessig explained:

... once this wiki-army has tracked the positions of all Members of Congress, we will display a map of reform, circa 2008: Each Congressional district will be colored in either (1) dark red, or dark blue, reflecting Republicans or Democrats who have taken a pledge, (2) light red or light blue, tracking Republicans and Democrats who have not taken our pledge, but who have signaled support for planks in the Change-Congress platform, or (3) for those not taking the pledge and not signaling support for a platform of reform, varying shades of sludge, representing the percentage of the Member's campaign contributions that come from PACs or lobbyists.

...

What this map will reveal, we believe, is something that not many now actually realize: That the support for fundamental reform is broad and deep. That recognition in turn will encourage more to see both the need for reform and the opportunity that this election gives us to achieve it. Apathy is driven by the feeling that nothing can be done. This Change Congress map will demonstrate that in fact, something substantial can be done. Now.

Lessig says that the project will, down the road, model itself on Emily's List in that it will recruit contributors to finance candidates who make reforming congress a central part of their campaign.

When the Democrats re-took congress in 2006, they won on a platform built by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's mantra of being against the Republicans' culture of corruption.

Yet the Democratic-led congress' current job approval rating is in the low twenties. This apparent dissatisfaction suggests that a large body of people might be ready and interested in volunteering for the Change Congress project.

So far, senator Barack Obama's campaign for the Democratic nomination for president has surged on this theme of bringing change to Washington, DC. The Illinois senator's seemingly magical combination of inspirational rhetoric, off-line community-organization strategies, combined with the smart design of online social networking tools have fostered high levels of engagement.

The question facing the Change Congress campaign is whether Lessig and his colleagues at the Sunlight Foundation can motivate a bi-partisan electorate to become similarly engaged without -- at first at least -- the funds and advertising budget that's powering the Obama campaign.

In an interview, Lessig says that for now, he's going to focus on motivating people to volunteer their time research members of congress' positions on transparency, accountability and public financing of campaigns.

"If you give them a big vision, and talk about all the good things that will come out of it, then I think a lot of people will be willing to do the wiki work [at home] in their pajamas," he says. "The hard thing is getting them to go to rallies and getting them to call their congressman."

Lessig says that his goal is to raise $500,000 to fund the project for the year by May 1. He hopes to hire a couple of staffers in the San Francisco bay area and an executive director.

The project has bipartisan appeal -- Republicans took over congress in 1994 with similar promises of sweeping change. As National Journal has thoroughly documented, many of those promises were not fulfilled.

This time, it could be different -- now that an engaged electorate has software and an open reporting system to hold their members' feet to the fire.

Update: In answer to the reader below's question on what happens if a member of congress takes a pledge and doesn't follow through, Lessig says that he anticipates that each district will have voters who will monitor their members' activities and report on them.

"If you violate the pledge, you've created a huge opportunity for people to attack you," he says.

See Also:

• ETech: Lessig Calls for Geeks to Code Money Out of Politics
• Digital Culture Shift: Lessig Leaves IP Battle
• Is the Obama Campaign Really Different?
• Stanford Law Professor Larry Lessig Explores Bid for Congress
• Lessig Won't Run for Congress After All

SURVIVALIST SCRAPBOOK: World food shortages

The Fed Can't Save Us from World Food Shortages

posted on: December 20, 2007 | about stocks: DIA / QQQQ / SPY

I have talked about this subject of resource shortages relentlessly in the blog, but now the mainstream press and 'academic studies' are seeing the strains on our food supply by a 'World of Shortages'. Our inflation this time is not due to an overheated economy like past cycles but demographic worldwide trends (the world was not built for 7 billion plus people, with >50% urbanized which is where we are headed within a decade); this is why I argue the Fed just needs to forget about inflation (it is powerless to stop the trends behind it) and work on growth.

It would also help if our gosh darn politicians did not encourage programs that diverted food supply away from food and into energy, especially such inefficient things as corn ethanol but votes are votes, and they will be bought off any way they can in Iowa, to the detriment of us all. It is one thing to put sarcastic comments into a blog, but these are truly very bad things happening that our politicians are in fact encouraging (they kill the solar incentive in the recent tax bill? they keep subsidizing the bad types of energy and call this a 'victory'?) What a joke.

Just like the mortgages, until it gets so terrible that wide parts of our population suffer and raise hell, then they will reverse course - and look back at these type of energy bills and say "so and so is to blame for such a bad decision". Check back in 3-4 years, trust me, this will happen.

These are not things that get fixed if China GDP drops from 12% annual to 3% or US "slows down". This is what "those in the know" either don't know or are ignoring. And again we move to a 'reactive' situation than 'proactive'. I am not sure what it will take to put this on the radar, since people unable to pay for food in the lower tranches of society won't affect the investment banks in New York and thus do not require any urgent action or Fed hand holding.

As I have stated, this is incrementally happening year by year (all this inflation, not just food), but now it's really starting to accelerate and affect much larger swathes of people. And this is why the economy will be issue #1, #2, and #3 by the time the general election is in full swing. I expect to see an angry electorate in fact.

First, World Food Supply is Shrinking U.N. Agency Warns

• In an “unforeseen and unprecedented” shift, the world food supply is dwindling rapidly and food prices are soaring to historic levels, the United Nations’ top food and agriculture official warned Monday.
• The changes created “a very serious risk that fewer people will be able to get food,” particularly in the developing world, said Jacques Diouf, head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
• The agency’s food price index rose by more than 40 percent this year, compared with 9 percent the year before — a rate that was already unacceptable, Mr. Diouf said. New figures show that the total cost of food imported by the neediest countries rose 25 percent in the last year, to $107 million.
• At the same time, reserves of cereals are severely depleted, the agency’s records show. World wheat stores declined 11 percent this year, to the lowest level since 1980. That corresponds with 12 weeks of the world’s total consumption, much less than the average of 18 weeks’ consumption, in storage during the 2000-2005 period.
• There are only 8 weeks of corn left, down from 11 weeks in the same five-year period.
• Prices of wheat and oilseeds are at record highs, Mr. Diouf said Monday. Wheat prices have risen by $130 a ton, or 52 percent, since a year ago. United States wheat futures broke $10 a bushel for the first time Monday, a psychological milestone.
• Mr. Diouf said the crisis was a result of a confluence of recent supply and demand factors that, he said, were here to stay.
• On the supply side, the early effects of global warming have decreased crop yields in some crucial places. So has a shift away from farming for human consumption to crops for biofuels and cattle feed. Demand for grain is increasing as the world’s population grows and more is diverted to feed cattle as the population of upwardly mobile meat-eaters grows.
• “We’re concerned that we are facing the perfect storm for the world’s hungry,” said Josette Sheeran, executive director of the World Food Program, in a telephone interview. She said that her agency’s food procurement costs had gone up 50 percent in the last five years and that some poor people were being “priced out of the food market.”
• To make matters worse, high oil prices have doubled shipping costs in the last year, putting stress on poor nations that need to import food and the humanitarian agencies that provide it.
• Already “unusual weather events,” linked to climate change — like drought, floods and storms — have decreased production in important exporting countries like Australia and Ukraine, Mr. Diouf said.

Next, Food and Fuel Compete for Land

• Shopping at a Whole Foods Market in suburban Chicago, Meredith Estes said food prices have jumped so much she has resorted to coupons. Charles T. Rodgers Jr., an Arkansas cattle rancher, said normal feed rations so expensive and scarce he is scrambling for alternatives. In Oregon, Jack Joyce, the owner of Rogue Ales, said the cost of barley malt has soared 88 percent this year. (ok I have to admit I laughed at the first sentence... poor lady had to resort to coupons at Whole Foods, a very expensive place to shop for you darn yuppie types)
• For years, cheap food and feed were taken for granted in the United States. But now the price of some foods is rising sharply, and from the corridors of Washington to the aisles of neighborhood supermarkets, a blame alert is under way.
• Among the favorite targets is ethanol, especially for food manufacturers and livestock farmers who seethe at government mandates for ethanol production. The ethanol boom, they contend, is raising corn prices, driving up the cost of producing dairy products and meat, and causing farmers to plant so much corn as to crowd out other crops.
• The results are working their way through the marketplace, in this view, with overall consumer grocery costs up roughly 5 percent in a year and feed costs up more than 20 percent.
• Now, with Congress poised to adopt a new mandate that would double the volume of ethanol made from corn, ethanol skeptics say a fateful moment has arrived, with the nation about to commit itself to decades of competition between food and fuel for the use of agricultural land.
• “This is like a runaway freight train,” said Scott Faber, a lobbyist for the Grocery Manufacturers Association, who complained that ethanol has the same “magical effect” on politicians as the tooth fairy and Santa Claus have on children. “It’s great news for corn farmers, but terrible news for consumers.”
• But ethanol critics are not getting much traction with their argument. Last week, the Senate voted 86 to 8 for a new energy bill containing expanded ethanol mandates, and the House is expected to follow suit this week.
• Experts with no stake in the argument say ethanol has indeed contributed to rising food costs, but that is only one among several factors. Higher fuel costs are driving up the expense of growing and transporting food. And strong economic growth abroad is increasing demand for agricultural commodities, allowing once-destitute people to augment their diets with meat and dairy.
• It is also a tough time, politically, to make a case against ethanol. With continuing turmoil in the Middle East, sky-high gas prices and presidential candidates stumping in Iowa, the heart of the Corn Belt, a new renewable fuel standard has plenty of supporters on Capitol Hill.
• “We did get whipped,” said Jay Truitt, vice president of government affairs for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. “We continue to be caught up in this fervor, almost spirituality, about ethanol. You can’t get anyone to consider that there is a consequence to these actions.”
• He added, “We think there will be a day when people ask, ‘Why in the world did we do this?’”
• The bill in Congress would increase the mandate for renewable fuels to a striking 36 billion gallons by 2022. That is far beyond a requirement on the books now for 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol by 2012. Much of the newly required ethanol could be made from agricultural wastes like corn stalks and straw, and its production would not compete directly with food production. But the proposed mandate, known as a renewable fuel standard, also calls for 15 billion gallons of ethanol made from grains, primarily corn.
• Mark W. Leonard, who raises cattle and corn in western Iowa and owns a stake in several ethanol plants, said it was “absolutely essential” that the government increase the mandate for ethanol, and he urged Congress to push up the deadlines. (clearly an unbiased opinion) “This is a national security issue more than anything else,” said Mr. Leonard, noting the nation’s dependence on imported oil. “We need to quit sending money to people who want to blow us up.” (of course, the fallback for everyone when questioned - the terrorists will come to our corn fields if we don't go to their corn fields first)
• Joe Victor, vice president for marketing for Allendale, an agricultural research firm in the Chicago suburbs, said Midwestern farmers would face a pleasant quandary in the spring in deciding what to plant because wheat and soybean prices are at or near record highs and corn prices remain bullish. “Oh geez, they’ve got money galore,” he said. “The Senate vote for the energy bill was a real confidence builder for the farmer to think, ‘They are not going to pull the rug out from underneath us.’”
• Feed costs have increased 25 to 30 percent in the last year, according to David Fairfield, director of feed services at the National Grain and Feed Association. He attributed virtually all of the increase to the demands of the ethanol industry
• As the debate continues, one thing is certain: American shoppers are increasingly frustrated over rising prices. “It’s the staples, the cheeses, the milks and produce,” said Ms. Estes, shopping at the Chicago-area Whole Foods. “It’s going up, and my grocery bill at the end, it’s like, ‘Are you kidding me?’”

If this blog is around in 3 years, let's check back and ask in joining Mr Truitt "Why in the world did we do this?’. So when you see your politicians on local and national TV trumpeting this plan, unless you live in a corn filled state, I'd urge you to boo and hiss. And call them.

Until then I will just complain in the blog and continue to look for the people with deeper and deeper pockets (farmers) and find the items they will be throwing our tax money at (fertilizer).

What a system.