I have the extreme good fortune to have an aunt with a place at the Chautauqua Institution in New York State. (Well really I mainly have the extreme good fortune to have a just fabulous aunt, condo or no!)

Chautauqua, for those unfamiliar with it, was founded in 1874 as a "camp" to teach Sunday School teachers how to teach their students.  It was primarily a religious institution.  Today it is 9 weeks of arts, religious and educational lectures--each week dedicated to a different topic.  Last year for example I attended the week dedicated to global climate change (Al Gore gave his presentation).

This year I'm here for the week on "The Media and News: Applied Ethics". Monday, John Harwood from the WSJ spoke, yesterday, David Westin from ABC News and today, the funny, biting and insightful Arianna Huffington.  Follow me below the bump for a recap of her comments.

After many years as a proud Decline to State Voter, I became a Democrat in December of 06.  I did it, not out of any burning desire to be a Democrat, but so I would be able to become Charlie Brown’s alternate on the Placer County Democratic Central Committee  (PCDCC)  I'm still a pretty lousy example of a "Democrat" to be honest, but I'm learning ;-)

Yeah yeah I know— Central Committee stuff, meh.  Boooring.  Well yes and no.  We at the PCDCC are kicking elephant butt and taking names and I’ll tell you how if you’ll follow me below the bump.

Remember those halcyon days of yore just last year when we all were fighting the good fight to elect Charlie Brown to Congress and Rob Haswell to the California Assembly?  

Well, if you are like me and the answer is "Umm I think so, but that’s all sorta hazy right about now espresso!", then follow me below the bump.....

(My apologies in advance to those possibly offended by my borrowing of the traditional Passover blessing.)

Because today is when George W. Bush, pResident of the GOP (Gang of Predators) party is coming to California 04 to raise funds for the equally loathsome John Doolittle.  More below the fold.

My local paper, the Sierra Sun, published a LTE today where the writer claimed that "Neither President Bush nor anyone in his administration has ever tried to link Hussein directly to 9/11."

I need/want to rebut this clearly ad factually and so wrote the following OP-Ed piece which I hope you all can correct/add to/edit/etc.

On October 3rd, George Bush will be coming to California Congressional District 04 to host a fundraiser for the morally & ethically challenged John Doolittle.   Doolittle's representatives have said they hope to raise $500,000.00 from the event.  So what can we do about it?  More below the fold....

Today Charlie Brown asked John Doolittle to participate in a series of debates throughout District 4 in California. Will John respond?

As the very few of you whom I actually met and talked with face to face at YK2006 know, I don't post diaries very often (three in three years? Yeah I pretty much suck as a diarist).  

But Gina asked me to post this diary so <deep breath> here goes.....

So my friend sent us an email saying the Dems are the new Tokyo Rose.  The basic spiel is below the fold....

If you are in the Truckee, California area on Tuesday the 24th of this month at 5:00 PM, come meet Charles Brown, one of the fighting Dems.  He is challenging the ethically challenged John Doolittle for the 4th District Congressional seat.

Thanks to a comment by tmay on another thread it has come to my attention that the VP will be in Reno next week to speak about Social Security.

More below the fold.

So basically I need some math help here.  Math is not my strongpoint.

That the Iraq prisoner abuse mess is about to get MUCH worse.  He links to "Sadly No"  with this address:

http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/000732.html

The SF Chronicle is reporting on this:

 http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/03/13/MNG905K1BC1.DTL

There has been talk of this in the recent past here and on other blogs.  Is this the start of something bigger?  (And I'm sorry if I pasted rather than HTML'd this--I'm not clear on the instructions for creating a link!)