As a committed business Democrat -- a true Kool-Aid drinking believer in the Dems' business policies -- I found this article very interesting:

http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/St ory.aspx?dist=newsfinder&siteid=mktw &guid=%7BA88DEDDA%2D1279%2D475C%2D90 3D%2D85EF3B1324D9%7D&link=&keywo rd=blue

According to the firm's research paper, "The Blue Factor," an index of 76 companies in the S&P 500 meeting certain ethical criteria and favoring Democrats -- "blue" stocks -- would have topped a group of about 380 Republican "red" stocks by 15.6 percentage points annualized over the five years through August.

Trading in a five-year range, the pro-Democratic companies more than doubled the return of the pro-Republican companies.

Living in the sticks of Western PA, I seem to get political literature from the GOP that I'm pretty sure they don't send to anyone else.  

Apparently the GOP database people are too cheap to make sure I don't receive letters from Karen Santorum.  I mean, hell, send me ten more of those anti-Kerry mailers with the World Trade Center towers exploding -- those remind me why even as a relative conservative I can never be a Republican.  I should live to see something more cynical arrive in my mail!

Fascinating enough, the letter names several "ultra-liberal" Democrats but never mentions Bob Casey, Jr. even once!  Apparently, Casey is going to be traded for an ultra-liberal-to-be-named later just before the trade deadline.

To make it even better, the letter tries to imply that Casey is pro-abortion.

But, since Karen says she sents this "because we cannot afford to have our message filtered and distorted by the liberal media," I thought I'd just share letter with all you poor slobs who have to live with your views filtered by the liberal media (stupid Fox News).

OK, gang.  I'm getting ready to handle several websites for folks coming out of primaries.  Nothing fancy (no Senators, sorry).

I've never done a political campaign website before, and it is imperative that none of the legalities trip us up.  I run a for-profit business, and I'd rather not end up ruining my meager life's work trying to do the right thing for someone else if I can avoid it.

So, the question goes: in most cases these sites are going to be contributions in kind; what are the legalities of such contributions?  Where possible, I'd like to get a token payment so the candidates can say "Paid for by xxxxxx", but some may not be able to manage much.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060202/ap_o n_go_su_co/scotus_death_penalty;_ylt=Ak6 O2NBLSUZBH2eLoCblZjOs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z 2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

I know it hardly determines the man to be an uber-liberal, but it is still an interesting break with the conservatives on his first full day of work.

Alito joins the four liberals and one moderate to force Missouri to allow a stay of execution rather than expediting it.

A few days ago, there was a fairly large discussion on the topic of building websites for small campaigns.  http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/1/6/01424/39921

One of the things that has kind of shocked me is that no one seems to ever sat down and written a bottom-up piece of website software for political websites.  Everyone seems to be limping by with adjusted Content Management Systems, limited HTML templates, or some sort of blog software.

None of these implements the bigger stuff that even a small campaign needs, such as mass mail, well-constructed databases, media management, etc.

So, I toss this out there: what would the interest level be in an open source piece of campaign software?

I'm just curious if I'm the only person here who's a bit ambivalent about the lack of interest in the leftie blog world for looking at the voting in Iraq.

Sure, it's jamming square peg into a round hole.  Democracy is never neat, and adding a three-way ethnic civil war into the mix doesn't make it easier.  Coat that with a thick layer of historic anger in a country that can be secular modernist and Islamic fundamentalist at the same time, and you do sometimes have to wonder if Iraqi democracy can or will ever yeild anything of value.

On the other hand, it is also intriguing to see voting taking place in Damascus http://news.ft.com/cms/s/3da9c7c6-6cc9-11da-90c2-0000779e2340.html , probably the last place you'd ever think anyone would ever get to vote on anything.

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-0/113186125598600.xml&coll=1

This is just priceless.  After all the hemming and the hawwing from GOP central, Forrester lays it out there: W shit my bed.

It's fun watching the GOP implode.

Jeez.  I didn't know what to do this afternoon!  I live in rural western PA, and the Democrats actually managed to get a few of our guys on the ballot!

There were even actual, breathing, Democratic campaign workers outside the church where the polling place was.  There were friendly and courteous, actual people.

Are the Dems being serious about this deal of contesting every single seat?