Thanks for confirming my suspicions re stevenrockford. I did check out his history and noticed that he only showed up for Julian Assange and it was always about the sex allegations, but because I rarely post myself despite lurking since the Libby indictments, I didn’t want to cast any stones

Naomi Wolf has done an excellent article about irregularities with the rape allegations that make a very convincing case that the allegations are a trumped up ruse. markcripinmiller.com/2011/02/eight-big-problems-with-the-case-against-assange-must-read-by-naomi/wolf/

Sweden’s consistent unwillingness to find a way to question Assange that doesn’t involve having physical custody of him in Sweden, and the fact that Karl Rove is involved all combine to make it obvious that the US is pressuring Sweden to pursue a case that doesn’t pass the smell test.

David, I’ve been very confused as to why some cases are subject to the Voting Rights Act and/or pre-approval and others like the Pennsylvania case I’m told are not. They all look like civil rights violations to me. If you have already explained this, could you please link to it, and if not, would you please explain the difference? If it’s complicated and wonky, would you consider doing a diary dedicated to this subject?
Thanks in advance

This is the second time today, in this and the earlier thread on this issue, that the rich in Santa Barbara opposed the coastal route. As a 40+ year, resident of SB, I’ll tell you that there has never been a public debate about HSR in this town and that many people would welcome it especially those who commute from Ventura and Santa Maria to work every day. You also claim that driving north on the 101 from Los Angeles that there are stop lights in Santa Barbara- something that hasn’t been true for 20 -25 years.
I have to assume that the rest of your information is as inaccurate as these two claims about the rich and influential in Santa Barbara.

I too left the Catholic Church as a result of Humanae Vitae. After 12 years of a wonderful Catholic school education for which I am grateful every day, I finally became fed up one Sunday morning. Listening to a parish priest rant on and on about birth control, while we all sat within a lily-white congregation in a very segregated Brooklyn neighborhood, that the Church actively enabled to stay that way, was the last straw for me.
I continued to go to church for a few more months while I lived under my parents roof but when I moved to California, the Catholic Church and I were done.
It still saddens me to watch the continued conservative backlash to Vatican II. Millions of liberal Catholics left with Paul VI and especially John Paul II.

I’d like to suggest that whomever calls leaves a message on voicemail if that’s what you get. I’d love to talk if I knew you called and I wasn’t here or I may just be lurking in the background so I don’t have to talk to another Obama volunteer.

With me,they didn’t even need the fraud loophole to deny paying for preventive care. They just sent me a letter informing me that my policy was “grandfathered in” because it pre-dated the bill and therefore none of it’s terms would apply to me. And then they congratulated themselves and me that there would be no changes, since, after all, the President had said that most people were happy with the insurance that they had and didn’t want it to change.

Consider contacting the Santa Barbara Film Festival. The festival is at the end of January each year and has an amazing array of documentaries each year. Because of our proximity to LA, we also attract a lot of the PTB in Hollywood- that’s not necessarily a good thing for the locals but it would be for a film maker.

Will this movie be playing outside of the NYC area either in theaters or on the cable networks -Premium movie station or the Documentary channel on Direct TV? I would love to see it.

Daniel, I’m so sorry to hear about this. While I haven’t lived in Brooklyn since 1969, I went to high school at Bishop McDonnell’s on Eastern Parkway on the eastern end of the Botanic Gardens. (It’s now a school for the deaf)
Can you tell me if taxpayer dollars are being used to give another sport’s team a brand new stadium?
My sister, who lives north of the City, told me about the new Mets stadium and how ticket prices are so expensive only corporations can still afford to purchase them.

If this stands, welcome socalmonk to your new district. While I dislike the idea of giving Gallegy a safe district, the new lines makes much more sense for Califonia 23 than the previously one which gave Gallegy the Santa Ynez Valley just over the mountain pass from Santa Barbara.
Since most of the people in Santa Ynez work in Santa Barbara and Santa Ynez is the place where Santa Barbarians move when they get sick of the “big” city, it essentially disenfranchised the SYV making it impossible for them to have a Congressperson who truly represented them. Giving Gallegy the SYV was part of the attempt to open up this section of Santa Barbara county to developers and also continued the myth that Santa Barbara County is “Reagan Country”
With this redistricting, all of SB County west of the Central Valley is in the same district again plus San Luis Obispo County and the northern coastal areas of Ventura County. I think this actually will give us a better chance of electing a more progressive rep than Lois Capps, who is a nice person but a “New Democrat” too much in the Clinton camp.