for those out in wisconsin...

Keep your eye on this future brewpub in Madison. Joe spent some time here last year, and I learned a lot about brewing and its potential for experimentation. Craft brewing has been successful, but it seems like the next generation of brewpubs are going to start pushing beyond the standard Pilsner-IPA-Brown-Red-Stout selection you see at many places. Mint porter? Rasperry Belgianwine? Sour red?

It's a good time to be a beer drinker in this country...

the piss-hot curtis

red bull
worster sauce
bourbon
salt.

and they say "the left" is angry...

Some video at a Palin Rally:

@ the hubagoo

nat sherman mcd's...mmmm

weekend's here

on the voter fraud charges

we're starting to see a real uptick in the charges of voter fraud around the country (warning: extreme rightward slant). This has started to manifest itself with assaults on the offices of voter registration groups. What you're actually seeing is a reprise of the 2006 elections and the raison d'etre of the Attorney Firing Scandal (which cost ol' Alberto "Abu" Gonzales his job, and is still looking for one).

The reason folks like David Iglesias was fired was because he would not press charges against groups like ACORN for voter fraud. Iglesias, a Republican appointee, studied the matter and found that there was no actual instances of voter fraud (people voting under an assumed name, so that you can vote twice). Rules were bent in following the Justice Department rules for raising charges during an election season (typically frowned upon).

What we are seeing is registration fraud. Meaning, if I was to fill out one of these forms ACORN would hand me and spell my name "Sean Mullins" (fuck that name, seriously), I was committing registration fraud. Thankfully, it doesn't even matter that I did that, because if I wanted Sean and myself to vote, I would have to come up with a piece of ID that has "Sean Mullins" on it (license, utility bills, etc.) I would say "oops, that was a typo" and correct the form and that is that.

It is painfully obvious that Republicans are against it because poor and minority people are being registered. Instead of trying to make sure that as many Americans as possible have a voice, they accuse them of a felonious crime and do everything they can to prevent them from reaching the polls.

My source of optimism is that a President Obama takes a top-to-bottom review of every single Bush Administration hire in their agencies (EPA, NASA, Dept. of Interior, Justice Dept., the whole lot) and ensure they were not hired to advance a political agenda. Also, the Supreme Court just delivered a decision on registrations that is encouraging. I hope it is just the last gasp of a dying ideology/political party.

At the kaki king show

Higher ground is nice enough to provide wifi at their venue, so I can
pass this note. Here to see what people are calling the best new
guitarist around. She brought her band along for the ride as well.
Let's rock.

Gonna donate some time...

Going to do a little volunteer action with Rural Vermont, a small-farm advocacy organization. We're setting up a booth for them and handing out literature at a farm in Fairfield on raw milk. I'm not usually one for the whole non-profit advocacy group thing (bad experience with one during college, boring story), but the bills they support sound like good ones. I'm looking forward to sampling some raw milk, and taste what I'm missing when I buy it from the store.

Can you say desperate?

Wow, this has to be some sort of new low:

Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin accused Democratic candidate Barack Obama on Saturday of "palling around with terrorists,"

...

Our opponent though is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough that he is palling around with terrorists who would target their own country," Palin said of Obama, also calling him an embarrassment.

Surprising that the #2 on the ticket is leveling these accusations; they must be doing really, really bad in the polls. In 2004, Bush didn't have to call Kerry a terrorist loving commie himself, he had lapdogs by the score ready to do it for him (Fox news, right wing radio and blogs, etc.) I'm less offended by this stuff (which is absolute filth and is indicative on the sorry state of the GOP and politics in general) than heartened to see the other side completely desperate. Neither Palin or McCain will finish this race with any sort of dignity left.

The Senate Thinks You're Stupid

While Bernie Sanders' amendment taxing millionaires to pay for the bailout will be allowed up for a vote tonight, it will ONLY be allowed up for an anonymous voice vote - that is, the unanimous consent agreement allowing the amendment to be voted on requires it to be voted on in a way that allows senators to not take a public position on it. Because of this, the outcome of the "vote" is already decided - it won't pass.

From Open Left. Full text of the Sanders Amendment (the only one being considered in the Senate) here. Ezra Klein responds:

But according to a quick conversation with Sanders' office, that doesn't mean there's no way to tally the vote. The anonymous refers to the congressional record. But the vote is public, and broadcast on C-SPAN. Hypothetically, if anyone wanted to watch it, they could draw up a list of who voted on it, and what their judgment was. I'm sure Sanders office would happily tell those hypothetical good samaritans the exact time when the bill is being considered. And finally, I'm sure that lots of hypothetical bloggers would happily post that hypothetical final list just to bring some slight measure of accountability to the process. You know. Hypothetically.

I love my Senator...

Sarah Mania! Sarah Palin's Greatest Hits