Lubbock Left

Let me be blunt.

I don’t think enough people realize how much of an absolute revolution in openness and transparency that the Obama transition team’s website Change.gov is. We are witnessing the first transparent Presidential handoff. You can contact the transition team directly and ask them questions. The contrast with the previous administration is so stark — I can’t believe more peple aren’t talking about this. Maybe everyone’s jaded by these comparisons already…

If you’ve got the time to watch it, this recent video by Lawrence Lessig (another personal hero of mine) does an excellent job of explaining how the change.gov website is setting the standard for a hybrid between control and sharing as well as how that fits in with the bigger picture of contemporary culture:

Around 30:00 into the video is where the Change.gov discussion really gets going, but the whole thing is extremely relevant to your life and better for you to watch than anything on TV right now — trust me. :)

If you’re excited like I am about government transparency, I recommend also checking out the Sunlight Foundation and their exciting projects like Party Time! which tracks who attends parties where elected officials make appearances, and Earmark Watch, which helps pin down who added what earmark to which bill.

The key to American success is going to be getting every citizen excited about participating in their own governance again. The technology and ideas about how and why to do this have been out there for years now, but it looks like we finally have the leadership necessary to make it happen.

In case you haven’t seen it by now, Obama’s first video address is up.

Between these weekly video addresses and the change.gov transition team website, the Obama administration looks like it will set a new standard for openness in the White House.

What a breath of fresh air this will be!

Thanks to Archangelwolf from the Lubbock Online forums for sharing this video.

Lubbock’s having some ridiculous flooding right now. Stay dry, everybody!

Thought I’d share this really neat interactive map from Mother Jones. It’s shows U.S. Military presence around the world from the 50s through the present day. It’s worth the time to zoom in on individual countries on the 2007 map and read a bit about why our troops are there and what the major issues in the country are.

So, who else thought that Michelle Obama’s speech tonight was amazing?

Dwight Fullingim, Democratic candidate for Congress (TX-19), is opening his Lubbock Campaign Headquarters one week from today.

1302 Avenue Q
Friday, August 22
4:00 - 7:00 pm

Bring your friends to come celebrate and show support for our great candidate Dwight Fullingim!

www.dwight08.com

Here’s another video that puts the candidate for a 3rd Bush Term into perspective:

More bad news for the McCain campaign, as Obama hits back on criticism of his “tires and tune-ups” remark, which is accurate and in the spirit of actually solving our energy crisis (rather than further enriching the oil companies that are responsible for it):

And, of course, it’s rough to be put in your place by Paris Hilton:

So… I wonder who the backroom smokers at the GOP will replace McCain with at their national convention?

McCain keeps on gaffing it up, this time referring to the nonexistent Iraq-Pakistan border. Wow.

Last week it was Czechoslovakia, which no longer exists.

Before that, he mixed up Sunni and Shia Muslims.

He’s also confused the prime minister of Germany with the prime minister of Russia.

So… where is all this foreign policy experience that the right-wingers keep on insisting that McCain has?

Discuss.

A friend of mine sent me a link to an interesting project that collects biographical information of those imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay.

Here’s a taste:

“They would say they were taking me to isolation for three days, and then leave me there for three months,” Najib said. “Then they would bring me back to a cell, and three or four days later take me back to isolation. . . . I would say, and this is a guess, I spent 15 days a month in isolation.”

As a result, Najib, who was arrested by U.S.-backed northern alliance soldiers in November 2001 after he’d driven a load of Taliban fighters to surrender, was jailed at Guantanamo for more than four years.

This facility’s short life will be a black mark on our history. Reading the individual stories of the detainees really drives that point home.

It must be so easy and so fun to make these videos. I mean no offense to the BNF crew — y’all do great work as always — but there are so very very many McCain gaffes out there to work with. He’s got flip-flops on major issues, deer-in-the-headlights looks, outright lies, and enough just-plain-wrong statements to make 2008 the biggest landslide Republican loss in decades.

But the thumping that the Republicans will receive does not mean we Democrats can rest on our laurels. Spread this video around so everyone can see how McCain and the Republican Party have lost their way.

Onward!