Bob Morris @ Jul 4th 2003 12:45 - Category: Unfiled ;
115 in Baghdad
Weather.com says it will be 115 in Baghdad for at least the next week. Large parts of the city still have intermittent electricity and water. People are forced to sleep on roofs to escape the heat. US troops are wearing heavy gear and Kevlar.
And Baghdad can get hotter than 115…
Bob Morris @ Jul 4th 2003 12:40 - Category: Unfiled ;
Davis recall proponents say they have enough signatures
What’s more, they claim “enough signatures to put the issue of recalling the Democratic governor on the ballot in November“, bad news for Gov. Gray Davis
A November recall election, rather than in April during the Presidential primaries, means that many will not vote, and this favors recall supporters, who will vote anyway.
Daniel Weintraub in his California Insider newletter says the Secretary of State is blocking a Nov. election by a ruling that will probably be contested in court. He concludes:
This is looking more like a mirror image of Florida every day. Instead of a Republican Secretary of State fighting to slow a recount and elect a Republican president, we have a Democratic Secretary of State acting to slow a signature count to prevent the recall of a Democratic governor.
The L.A. Times report a slim majority support the recall. However, when they mentioned the price of the election, and that no other Democrats were yet running, then Davis squeaked by.
However other Democrats will no doubt run, even if they currently say they “have no interest”, like Sen. Dianne Feinstein is saying. Some insiders assume she will eventually run, especially if it looks bad for Davis.
Bob Morris @ Jul 4th 2003 00:10 - Category: Unfiled ;
Collapsing milk prices
Milk prices are at historic lows in Vermont and are staying there. Many Vermont dairy farms are shutting down. As many as 200 could close this year.
Some family friends run a diary farm in Vermont. We’ve known them for decades. The farm has 48 milking cows, with haying, lumbering, and sugaring. Mostly though, it’s the cows. Three brothers run it, no hired help. They rotate waking up at 4:30 am to milk the cows. There’s a plaque on the barn from the state of Vermont saying they’ve farmed their land for six generations. Their children, mostly grown, aren’t interested in dairying, and the brothers aren’t pushing it on them.
Now with this long, serious collapse in milk prices, dairy farms are closing down. Their dairy operation will probably be one of them, and sooner rather than later. They are hardworking, thrifty New Englanders, so I’ve no doubt they will survive, probably quite well too. But a way of life that has gone on for hundreds of years in Vermont is ending, and ending fast.
A sister who lives in semi-rural Connecticut tells me a nearby farm that has survived for 250 years, is closing.
Sad days for farmers in New England. And for farmers nationwide too,
One wonders why milk prices have collapsed, and why so many farms are closing. If it were just a few, it might be the farm. But it’s lots of farms. That means it’s a social and economic phenomena.
Bob Morris @ Jul 4th 2003 00:08 - Category: Unfiled ;
Bad Moon Rising
RCP has just released Bad Moon rising, a website and newspaper supplement about the current assault on civil rights in the US. It’s serious, militant, and unsettling.
Cool arty version
Straight html version
Bob Morris @ Jul 4th 2003 00:07 - Category: Unfiled ;
FACTS
I just became webmaster for FACTS (Families to Amend California’s Three Strikes), and spent the past two days reorganizing the site. The site has an extraordinary wealth of information, several hundred pages worth in fact!
The challenge was to assemble it in an easily accessible way, with navigation bars at the top and bottom of each page. I think I’m most the way there.
Let me know what you think!
Oh, “man gets life for spitting on cop”, this was in Oklahoma, not California. However one man in California did get 25 to life for stealing two pieces of pizza. Sigh.
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