connecting*the*dots

Al Franken is a fucking warrior for the truth — from his dedication to battle the system’s misinformation on Air America to walking into classrooms, teaching our youth to be aware of the snakes in the media by using long division.

Literally.

In one brilliant scene, he exposed Brit Hume’s bullshit statistics regarding the safety in Iraq compared to the yearly homicide death count in California, by simply dividing the death tolls by taking the populations of each territory. .002745 is not greater than .25 (my figures might be off).

Talk about proving why math matters to kids.

Nick Doob & Chris Hegedus’ God Spoke is an amazingly revealing peek into Franken’s life and social periphery. His devotion to family and friends (from his father and wife to Paul Wellstone) is a revealing exploration of his character, providing a glimpse into his inspiration to both participate and live in a fair, democratic Republic.

And of course, the guy is simply funny as hell. One of the greatest moments of the movie came when he and Ann Coulter engaged in a debate, on stage, before a live audience. The moderator asked Ann who she would choose to be if she could be anyone throughout history. Her response? Twofold: Sen. McCarthy because of his ability to expose Democrats as communists and FDR, so she could revoke The New Deal.

Hsss’s from the Austin audience filled the theater.

Al’s choice? Hitler, so he could revoke the holocaust, WWII, etc. In-the-moment fucking brilliance that brought down the house I tell you.

He’s running in 2008 for a Senate seat in Minnesota. I can’t wait to see his first debate (if his opponent doesn’t duck and hide that is). Keep on keeping on Al, and don’t ever change to win an election.

We need more people like you willing to take politics back to the people while staying real.

Media Matters clearly describes how Fox News is a major part of the Republican Noise Machine.

If you’re a Republican, please read this article in depth. Everything is based on facts and a timeline. You tell me: Who’s spinning here? The President and his cronies talk about not playing the "blame game," so how would you classify the glare on local government?

Here’s my take on the federal governments response:

Pre-hurricane preparation: Failure by the federal government by:
a) Hiring Michael Brown (bi-partisan failure in approving the hire)
b) Moving FEMA under the Homeland Security bucket (stealing funding to support the War in Iraq)
c) Cutting said funding to the development of the levee infrastructure (80% complete is completely incomplete)

Hurricane response: Failure by the federal government by:

1. Not being proactive based on weather forecasters reports describing the size of the impending hurricane as definitely greater than a category 3 (levees only hold back a level 2 based on years of studies)
2. Not immediately responding to local government cries for evacuation assistance
3. Not using all means at their disposal (i.e. Aircraft Carriers) to assist with the evacuation/rescue efforts in a timely manner
4. Not allowing private business to assist (WalMart, Amtrak, UPS, airlines, Greyhounds, etc.)
5. Not allowing volunteers to do anything aside from posing in photo ops or forcing them to endure with the red tape or go home
6. Not knowing what was happening in NO until TV reports informed them.
7. Considering evacuees as threats ("looters/thieves") before considering them people in a desperate situation
8. Locking evacuees into the city of NO and specific staging areas, causing more death and violence
9. Not allowing the media to report what is happening in the streets (i.e. photos of dead bodies)