This is what progress looks like

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W00t! (Although the Speaker Pelosi stuff is getting a little out of hand. Shouldn’t we wait until she actually assumes the office?)

First woman to serve as speaker of the house: Nancy Pelosi

First Muslim elected to U.S. Congress: Keith Ellison

First Democratic Socialist elected to U.S. Senate: Bernie Sanders

First African-American governor of Massachusetts: Deval Patrick

And, according to the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, 67 openly gay candidates were elected to state and local offices (more than ever before)…
– Government Looking More Like Its People

I didn’t even know about all those gay candidates! We hardly notice that kind of thing around here where we have had gay folks in almost every level of local government office.

(Link via Wonkette.)

Second Life newbie? It’s OK at RootsCampSL.

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Ruby mashup Day two of RootsCampSL was very interesting. We discussed some specific cliffhanger races like the Virginia Senate battle and some very competitive congressional seats in North Carolina (even touching on the Durham DA race which was the political fallout of the Duke rape case prosecution). We also talked about whether the Democratic Party is or should be a “big tent” encompassing a wide range of issues and positions. Today’s RootsCampers came from CA, MN, WA, IN, NC, NY, CT, AZ, CO, VA, and Trinidad & Tobago!

We now have our own Flickr group for RootsCampSL, I am also collecting related links in del.icio.us, and there’s always Technorati.

Tomorrow’s topics will be a general Q & A for those new to Second Life, and then a review of Ned Lamont’s campaign in Connecticut from Ned’s tech coordinator and maye other campaigns staff. If you’ve never tried Second Life, tomorrow afternoon’s session for newbies at 4pm EST is a great time to start. I hope to see you there.

The picture above of me and my avatar was inspired by these images of Susan Tenby and her Second life avatar.

Holy shit

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Looks like Webb is going to hang on in Virgina (by his fingernails!) and take the Senate for the Democrats! The AP is calling it (although CNN is not, yet):

(CNN) — A Democratic takeover of the Senate is appearing more and more likely after an ongoing canvass of votes in the Senate race in Virginia produced no significant changes, sources told CNN late Wednesday.

With Democratic challenger Jim Webb leading Republican incumbent Sen. George Allen by about 7,200 votes and the canvass about half complete, the Associated Press declared him the winner in the race.
– Democrats win control of Senate, AP reports – CNN.com

RootsCampSL – off to a great start

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Photo by Beth Kavka The first day of RootsCampSL was awesome! We had about 15 people (with very little notice, this is a lot) including prominent SL blogger Rik Riel, prominent nonprofit blogger Beth Kanter, and Aldon Hynes who worked on the Howard Dean and Ned Lamont Campaigns. (I can’t decide if I should share their Second Life names or real life.) We also had people from Georgia, California, Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina (not including me!), Massachusetts, and New York, as well as Canada, Italy, and Spain!

RootsCampSL day one The schedule wiki is shaping up nicely with a lot of good idea from today’s participants.

On tap for tomorrow’s meeting: 2006 Debrief & Discuss. We started to do this today but didn’t have time, so tomorrow we’ll take an hour or two and hear from eachother about the elections in our own states and any other races that we were paying special attention to. This will be an opportunity to share our personal experiences and any lessons learned. Its starts tomorrow (Thursday) at 4pm EST on Better World Island.

Continue reading “RootsCampSL – off to a great start” →

Rumseld finally fired, when will the war end?

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Better four years late then never. GOP officials: Rumsfeld stepping down – CNN.com.

Read Stan Goff, et al on why this sick, disgusting, malicious, deathly, and debilitating war must stop now. Yesterday Stan ran a one-man progressive canvass talking to voters in his North Raleigh precinct:

I printed 650 flyers that began with the statements: “I am not a liberal. I am not a Democrat. And I urge you to vote a straight Democratic ticket here today,” then went on to explain why — emphasizing my status as a retired member of the US Armed Forces…

[…]
Note to the Democratic party: We now have you firmly in our sights, exposed. Ain’t gonna be no honeymoon. We’re not hearing that you need time. Not with the bodies piling up every day.
– Feral Scholar » Honeymoon? Ha!

Way to stay the course, Bush.

RootscampSL update

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The first Rootscamp in a series of fabulous events starts in less than 5 hours. We’ve got a schedule up on the wiki now where you can propose topics and speakers. Please add yourselves and any other folks you’d like to hear from. Events run from today until Tuesday.

Here’s a picture of my avatar (Ruby Glitter) wearing a RootsCamp t-shirt:
Ruby Glitter wearing RootsCamp t-shirt

You can get your own t-shirt by visiting RootsCamp in Second Life. Click here to go directly to Better World Island, then select the RootsCamp teleport orb.

Please come to the kick-off meeting at 4pm EST today or let us know (by e-mail or wiki) if you’d like to lead a discussion. Also, let me know if you haven’t used Second Life before, I’m thinking of organizing a “newbie” session at RootsCampSL.

Finally, please please please write about this and link to http://RootsCampSL.org if you have a blog. We were very ambitious when we decided on Friday to hold this event the day after the election, so we have very little time to get the word out. I’ll buy a drink (in real life or Second Life) for anyone who blogs about it this week. Thanks!

Leadership time

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I love this quote from Mark Marcoplos commenting on OrangePolitics:

Price and the Democrats in general represent the firemen that watched complacently as the madness grew from a spark to a smoldering ember to a destructive blaze and then began brandishing a water pistol in the general direction of the nearly destroyed building.
– OrangePolitics.org: Get your red, hot results

And I also must say how excited I am to have a real-live Socialist in the US Senate! Has that ever even happened before? I’ve heard Bernie speak before and he really rocks the progressive values.

Here’s to hoping the Democrats use the occasion of their new congressional majority to relocate that spine they misplaced 10 years ago…

Americans favor Democrats, but it doesn’t matter

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It’s easy to get excited when we read polls like this, but you have to remember that political views are not evenly distributed across all the states or congressional districts. The country is very stratified into conservative (rural, exurban) and liberal (urban) areas, so the real deciders are the places that are in-between.

A majority of Americans said issues such as the Iraq war, the economy and terrorism would head in the right direction if the Democrats won control of Congress on Tuesday, according to a CNN poll released Monday.

A majority, 58 percent, said that a Democratic Congress would move the economy in the right direction, compared to 43 percent who said a Republican Congress would help the economy…
– Poll: Americans favor Democrats on the issues – CNN.com