Lebanon finally has a government after a cabinet was agreed following eighteen months of political deadlock. With eleven opposition ministers included, Hezbollah has the cabinet veto it has been demanding (often violently). Democracy Arsenal reminds us that there are still major threats to Lebanon:The cabinet formation is good news, but as Mona Yacoubian noted last week, "an agreement on a unity g
PoliTex notes that State Sen. Kim Brimer (R-Fort Worth) has filed a lawsuit to keep Wendy Davis off the ballot. From PoliTex:
The lawsuit is here.
The suit requests the court to “disqualify Davis from the November 2008 general election.”
The suit follows the same line of argument as three Fort Worth firefighters charged back in January, when they alleged in a suit that Davis couldn&#
Gay rights advocates asked California's highest court Friday to keep off the November ballot a citizens' initiative that would again ban same-sex marriage.
Lawyers for Equality California filed a petition arguing that the proposed amendment to the California Constitution should be invalidated because its impact was not made clear to the millions of voters who signed petitions to qualify the
I blogged about efforts by FIERCE NYC to oppose private development of Pier 40 a place where LGBT youth of color and homeless youth in NYC have traditionally been safe to hang out and be themselves. Read more about that here...Please sign the petition to oppose privatization and support an LGBT youth center! "Our vote says YES to: * people coming before profit and a pier 40 re-development pla
Katherine Heigl dropped out of the Emmy race today, saying that she doesn’t think the writing for her character on Grey’s Anatomy is worthy of an award and did not want to take away the opportunity from other actresses. I’m sorry, has the woman forgotten that she’s working in television - the vehicle responsible for [...]
Germany's right-wing extremist National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) has long found some measure of success in the voting booths of eastern Germany. In Sunday municipal elections in the state of Saxony, the run of success continued. With the state's 2.9 million voters choosing new county and municipal councils, the neo-Nazi NPD pulled in some 5.1 percent of the vote across the state and
by Dave MindemanAl Franken ended up with a first ballot victory (61.8% is the figure bantied about). I think there are couple of reasons why that happened.First, during Al Franken's nomination speech he apologized for his past offensive jokes. He brought it up himself when he probably didn't have to. I believe that he answered the questions that fence sitting delegates wanted addressed....abnd
This is no surprise, but the news just came out that the "Gay marriage ban qualifies for California ballot," and that story is located here. For what it's worth, I'm cautiously optimistic, particularly given the results of the recent Field Poll, although mitigated by the results of two other polls, that the voters will defeat this measure by a slight margin, and that the California Supreme Court
According to this article Colorado voters will vote to add an amendment to the state constitution that defines a person as “any human being from the moment of fertilization”. This amendment has become known as the “Definition of a Person” Amendment.
In order to get this to the ballot the group “Colorado for Equal Rights ” [...]
Now that Midland City Councilman Bill Dingus has been declared ineligible for the ballot by a federal judge because he failed to resign his city council seat, one must wonder exactly what is next in HD 82.
The Dallas Morning speculates that Dingus could still be made the nominee by the county chairs in HD 82, which get to select the nominee if one is declared ineligible from the ballot.
Clearly, that would require Dingus to resign from the council. I question, however, if once a candidate has been declared ineligible if he can again be eligible in the same cycle.
The Washington Times‘ Christina Bellantoni wrote the pool report for Senator Obama’s visit to a clothing manufacturing plant in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on 1 April. It included one item that surprised me by not generating more comment:
During the 25-minute tour, Obama called a woman “sweetie,” and thanked her in Spanish, then told another woman who [...]
From "Naftemporiki": "A group of around 20 persons wearing helmets, invaded an amphitheater of the veterinary school, a little before the elections start at 8:00, burnt voting papers and ballot boxes and caused minor damages to the elections hall. Earlier during the night, another group invaded a student elections event, and hanged down election banners and posters."Update: The following text together with some photo material was published at: morning at 8:00 am, an intervention against the elections was realised by 30 anarchists at the Veterinary school of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Once we entered the building, we moved towards the hall where the elections would take place, we took the ballot-box in our hands and together with some election material we set them on fire. This
I read this from the San Antonio Express-News with a little astonishment:
Barack Obama would have the coattails to carry down-ballot Texas Democrats to victory in November and could be crucial to Democratic efforts to take Harris County away from Republicans, the Illinois senator’s state congressional supporters said Tuesday.
Except for, perhaps, Harris County, I don’t see how Obama is more beneficial to Texas Democrats than Hillary Clinton. In fact, I’d argue Clinton would have longer coattails next November than Obama.
You’ll note that the paragraph quoted above is pretty specific to Harris County.
My first question is, “how can someone who didn’t win the state’s popular vote among Democrats manage to have longer coattails in November?” It
The NBA's reigning Most Valuable Player isn't prepared to say when he'll be ready to play again, although we continue to cling to our prediction here in Dimedom that he'll be back in less than the originally forecasted two weeks.
The NBA's reigning Most Valuable Player isn't prepared to say when he'll be ready to play again, although we continue to cling to our prediction here in Dimedom that he'll be back in less than the originally forecasted two weeks.
The Associated Press reported, “The late Pat Tillman, a former Arizona State linebacker who gave up a professional football career to join the military, is among 19 players up for election to the College Football Hall of Fame for the first time this year.”
This is quite an honor for the local hero. Tillman’s Sun Devils career [...]
The National Football Foundation announced the ballot for the 2008 class for the College Football Hall of Fame on Tuesday. The nominees include 75 players and eight coaches. Among the notable players are UCLA’s Troy Aikman, Notre Dame’s Tim Brown and Syracuse’s Art Monk, who was elected into the NFL Hall of [...]
What’s the Green news this week in Pleasanton that surrounds Real Estate? No Green Real Estate listings to note but Pleasanton Oak Grove referendum in on the table. Pleasanton City Council tabled the referendum vote pending the Superior Court decision. Pleasanton’s City officials goal was to have the decision place on the June ballot but felt they [...]
Maramiyya Group today cleared the ballot papers and ballot boxes for the upcoming presidential election from customs and handed them over to the Office of the Commissioner of Elections.
Maramiyya Group won the bid to supply ballot papers and ballot boxes for this year’s presidential election by competing against major publishers of Maldives and Sri Lanka.
Chief [...]
Ward B Waynesboro City Council candidate Chris Graham was certified for ballot access by Waynesboro voter registrar Mary Alice Downs on Tuesday - two full weeks before the March 4 filing deadline and a little more than two weeks after he entered the race for the open city-council seat.He is the first candidate to have secured his place on the ballot for the May 6 city election."I'm proud of the efforts of our campaign and our many volunteers who offered their time and energy toward completing this essential first phase of our effort at Moving Waynesboro Forward," Graham said today.Graham entered the race for the Ward B seat currently held by mayor Tom Reynolds on Feb. 1. Reynolds announced on Jan. 18 that he will not seek a third four-year term on the city council representing Ward B.Graha
The following video was taken by Bev Harris of Black Box Voting.org during the recounting of votes in the New Hampshire primary election which took place recently. The"chain of custody" and secure storage of the ballots are vital to ensure an accurate recount and prevent election fraud. Watch carefully the reactions and answers given by the "election officials" to the questions asked by Bev Harris and others present.If this was a bank storing currency for the night, would they just leave it in a room–because the whole building is secure? Or would they place it in the vault? The answer is obvious–the money would go into the vault. So why aren’t ballots treated with the same respect, considering they are the currency of a free democracy?For more detailed information on this and
As I have previously posted about here and here, the backers of the controversial GOP plan to steal California electoral votes has failed, yet again, to find enough fundraising to qualify for the June ballot. It looks like this sneaky move may not affect the 2008 race at all.From the LA Times, emphasis mine;A proposed initiative that drew national attention for its potential to affect next year's presidential election will not appear on the June ballot, organizers said Thursday.Republican backers of the measure, which could have tilted the presidential contest toward the GOP nominee by changing how California awards electoral votes, conceded that they were unable to raise sufficient funds.Sacramento consultant Dave Gilliard, the campaign manager, said that even if a financial angel were to shower the campaign with $1 million, there was not enough time to qualify the measure for June."I was surprised that more people that finance these types of efforts didn't step forward," Gilliard
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Great news just arrived via email:
November 16, 2007We are pleased to announce that just minutes ago, our attorney received a letter from the New York State Board of Elections informing us that Ron Paul will be on the ballot in New York!If you’ve been braving the cold to get signatures to place Dr. Paul’s name on the ballot in New York, you can stop. No more signatures are necessary. Thank you for being a part of our back-up plan for ballot access in your state. Your hard work and dedication makes this campaign possible.You never cease to amaze us!For Freedom,Ron Paul 2008 Presidential Campaign Committee
Technorati tags: Ron Paul, ballot, New York, primary, republican, Board of Elections, campaign, president
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It’s your duty as a football fan to vote! We don’t want any unproven QB’s slipping in there now do we? I guess that Tony Romo thing has worked out this season but I didn’t agree with it last year.
I know, I know…you say “My vote doesn’t matter” but what could it hurt? If you don’t vote you can’t bitch if Larry Johnson gets in on name alone and the Law and Order guy becomes your President.
Vote HERE.
tag: nfl, sports, football, babes, cheerleaders, pro bowl, vote
As I mentioned earlier, I sent an e-mail to Kevin Sherrington, the Dallas Morning News writer that didn't have C.C. Sabathia on his AL Cy Young ballot at all. Everybody else had C.C. either first or second, so I wondered what Sherrington's logic was.He was kind enough to reply very quickly. His ballot was Beckett, Carmona, Santana, in that order. His explanation for each follows.Beckett:"No, the 20 games didn't do it. It's only a game's difference. Beckett'sballpark had something to do with it, along with my feeling that Beckett was a better big-game pitcher, a fact borne out again in the playoffs."It was good to see that Beckett didn't get the nod simply because he had a shiny win total. It's true that Beckett pitches in a slightly more difficult park (Fenway's park factor is 106; Jacobs Field's is 103). This does make Beckett's ERA+ (145) superior to Sabathia's (143)But that's a fairly minimal difference; it clearly doesn't make up for the huge innings disparity. And al
I'm tired of watching politicians on both sides of the political aisle pander to churches to get elected. I'm tired of hearing candidates talk about their relationship with God, like it's the end all be all for a politician today.Senator Obama belongs to the political party that defends (or is supposed to anyway) the separation of church and state Thomas Jefferson, our first Democratic President, so greatly promoted. Democrats and Libertarians have been vilified for too long recently, being called Godless and wicked because they refuse to give in to Christian fundamentalists who wish to turn the United States, the very nation that championed the secular state, into the Jesus-obsessing equivalent of the Middle East.We live in a secular country with a secular government. I'm proud of that. I'm proud of the fact that I feel we must defend our country from Christian fundamentalists who want to use the Bible to further their hatred, ignorance and bigotry, Christian fundamentalists who
Giles Clarke proposed as new chairman of England and Wales cricket board
Giles Clarke has been put forward as the new chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB).The Somerset chairman has been proposed as David Morgan's successor after beating Michael Soper by 12 votes to six in a ballot of the 18 first-class counties and the MCC.Clarke's selection will now be put to the full membership of the ECB to be endorsed.Elections were first held this summer after it emerged Morgan was heading for the presidency of the International Cricket Council (ICC).At an initial ballot in September Clarke and Soper were tied on nine votes each. Soper is now expected to resign his deputy chairmanship of the ECB.Fifty-three-year-old Clarke's accession has surprised some commentators after he took the unpopular, but lucrative decision, to grant exclusive coverage of home Test series to satellite broadcasters.
If you want to be able to buy beer or light wine -- whatever that is -- in Yalobusha County, Mississippi, you had better hope voters in a special election on Dec. 11th pull the "Yes" lever.Yalobusha County Board of Supervisors agreed to hold a special election on legalizing the sale of beer and light wine. The Yalobusha Progressive Organization submitted a petition with 2,312 valid signatures. Even though the petition had more than the required 20 percent of the county's registered voters, it missed the deadline for the measure to appear on the Nov. 6 general election ballot. The group trying to repeal Prohibition in the county had hoped to benefit from a higher turnout during the general election, which includes the Mississippi gubernatorial race.
This was a tough one to compile. The top four teams are a no-brainer. Penn State was my preseason No. 5 team and they have not done anything to tarnish their ranking per se. But the No. 6 spot? Texas did not look like the No. 6 team this week. I am still no sold on the Mountaineers. Wisconsin continues to struggle, but the Badgers are still winning. But is any one playing better than Oregon right now? No. 6 maybe a bit high, but I don't know who else to put in there. The Cal-UO game in a few weeks will really clear up the top 5-6 teams in the nation.After No. 18, it is a crapshoot. There are about 10-15 teams that one can argue deserve top a top 25 ranking. Tulsa was a team I thought about ranking, let's see how they do against OU this week. And I am still not ready to put Virginia Tech back in the top 25.RankTeamDelta1Southern Cal 1 2LSU 1 3Florida-- 4Oklahoma-- 5Penn State-- 6Oregon 8 7Rutgers-- 8West Virginia 1 9California 2 10Texas 4 11Wisconsin 1 12Arizona State-- 13
Michael J. Gerson, writing in The Washington Post, accurately describes Tony Blair's foreign policy and its liberal intentions:More than that of any other world leader, Blair’s foreign policy approach is a rigorous, logical argument. Like advancements in communications and the global economy, political challenges, Blair contends, have “immediate impact, an ability to cross frontiers.” Irresponsible and failing states become bases of operation for terrorist, crime and drug syndicates. This chaos is tamed, in his view, by promoting economic development, treating killer diseases, fighting global warming and achieving peace in the Middle East — an agenda of exhausting idealism. “Justice,” he says, “is the thing that is most powerful in its appeal to people.”But Blair’s liberalism not only purrs, it bites. When distant chaos grows too intense and threatening, Blair has advocated military interventions from Kosovo to Sierra Leone to Afghanistan to Iraq.His muscular interna
Michael J. Gerson, writing in The Washington Post, accurately describes Tony Blair's foreign policy and its liberal intentions:More than that of any other world leader, Blair’s foreign policy approach is a rigorous, logical argument. Like advancements in communications and the global economy, political challenges, Blair contends, have “immediate impact, an ability to cross frontiers.” Irresponsible and failing states become bases of operation for terrorist, crime and drug syndicates. This chaos is tamed, in his view, by promoting economic development, treating killer diseases, fighting global warming and achieving peace in the Middle East — an agenda of exhausting idealism. “Justice,” he says, “is the thing that is most powerful in its appeal to people.”But Blair’s liberalism not only purrs, it bites. When distant chaos grows too intense and threatening, Blair has advocated military interventions from Kosovo to Sierra Leone to Afghanistan to Iraq.His muscular interna
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Bryan Caplan argues that voters hold an irrational anti-market bias:Why would the majority favor policies that hurt the majority? There is a good reason. The majority favors these policies because the average person underestimates the social benefits of the free market, especially for international and labor markets. In a phrase, the public suffers from anti-market bias. Economists have spent centuries explaining how markets channel greedy intentions into socially desirable results; how trade is mutually beneficial both within and between countries; how using price controls to redistribute income inflicts a lot of collateral damage. These are the lessons of every economics textbook. Contrary to the stereotype that they can't agree, economists across the political spectrum, from Paul Krugman to Greg Mankiw, see eye to eye on these basic lessons. Unfortunately, most people resist even the most basic lessons of economics. As every introductory teacher
Ballot box stuffing of a different kind took this week’s top spot on the Japanese-language MSN-Mainichi Interactive site’s entertainment rankings this week, with an article about a bra designed to look like … well, a ballot box.
Lingerie manufacturer Triumph International claims that the silver “Voter Turnout Lift-Up Bra,” was designed to increase the turnout at [...]
Gitanjali Gems Ltd has informed that the members of the Company, by way of Postal Ballot, have passed the following Special / Ordinary Resolutions, with requisite majority:1. Increase in the Authorised Share Capital of the Company from Rs 75,00,00,000 divided into 7,50,00,000 equity shares of Rs 10/- to Rs 120,00,00,000 divided into 12,00,00,000 equity shares of Rs 10/- each & consequential amendments in the Memorandum of Association of the Company.2. Authority to the Board to create, issue / offer and allot from time to time in one or more tranches, Equity shares to BIII Capital Partners LP and B III - A capital partners LP, whether or not such investors are members of the Company under a preferential allotment offer on such terms and conditions as may be determined by the Board in its absolute discretion, to issue and offer 1554050 equity shares or such number of equity shares. At such price as may be determined under the Guidelines for Preferential Issue as prescribed by SEBI an
The 2007 Baseball Hall of Fame ballots were released today. Here's the complete ballot:
Harold Baines, Albert Belle, Dante Bichette, Bert Blyleven, Bobby Bonilla, Scott Brosius, Jay Buhner, Ken Caminiti, Jose Canseco, Dave Concepcion, Eric Davis, Andre Dawson, Tony Fernandez, Steve Garvey, Rich "Goose" Gossage, Tony Gwynn, Orel Hershiser, Tommy John, Wally Joyner, Don Mattingly, Mark McGwire, Jack Morris, Dale Murphy, Paul O'Neill, Dave Parker, Jim Rice, Cal Ripken Jr., Bret Saberhagen, Lee Smith, Alan Trammell, Devon White, Bobby Witt.
If I had a ballot I'd vote for Gwynn, Ripken, McGwire, Rice, and Blyleven. The first three are no-brainer choices (although it's possible McGwire's steroid problems will keep him from getting in this year) while Rice and Blyleven have been repeatedly overlooked because later players have piled up bigger numbers. I'd also give serious consideration to Dawson, Gossage, John, Smith, and Trammell but don't think I'd vote for them.
What are y
From the article:"The bill, misleadingly named the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), strips employees of their right to a secret ballot election when deciding on whether or not unionize, and leaves a system called "card check" as their only option.Card check is a process in which employers agree to recognize the union if a majority of employees publicly sign cards requesting a union's representation. Under current law the card check process is usually followed by a secret ballot election to ensure that employees have not been pressured into signing."
