Daniel Cody - “Left on the Lake”

One thing that always irks me in conversations with some people is their insistance that for the most part, Democrats and Republicans are all the same, and if anything Democrats are ‘Republican Lite’. In some ways, I can see where those people are coming from and at times why they may believe that. For the most part though, I totally disagree and will usually rattle off five or ten things that I think seperate Democrats and Republicans in terms of philosophy.

This week in the capitol the differences between the parties couldn’t have been clearer. The Republican controlled legislature this week introduced or passed bills that would:

• Allow citizens to carry concealed handguns. (again)
• Ban cloning and stem cell research (again)

One one hand they say they’re ‘defending life’ but on the other they’re enabling people with the tools to take it.

In contrast, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle announced this week the state will be pitching in $16 million in energy assistance to help lower income residents pay their heating bills this Winter, when prices are expected to rise betwen 40% and 70%.

Why is the Republican controlled legistlature in Wisconsin spending it’s time re-introducing the same bills they couldn’t get passed in the past few years to limit stem cell research and let people walk around with concealed handguns, instead of helping out the citizens of Wisconsin who are facing a season of record breaking heating prices?

The difference in priorities couldn’t be more stark this week, and it’s just one small example of how Democrats differ from Republicans.

Update: Welcome to folks visiting from the Columbia Journalism Review today… feel free to add your thoughts below.

You might have heard yesterday that Republican House Leader Tom DeLay of Texas was indicted on a single charge of criminal conspiracy and forced to hand over his leadership role while the investigation continues.

It’s got to be a distressing time for the Republican leadership in America. Not only is their #1 guy in the House of Represenatives now facing criminal charges, but Sen. Bill Frist - the majority leader in the Sentate - is also under investigation for insider trading after he dumped all his stock in a family owned business days before a disappointing profit outlook was issued.

Then there’s the nominee for deputy attorney general Timothy Flanigan from the Justice Department who has ties to lobbyist Jack Abramoff (who also has ties to DeLay of course), a man who is under more federal investigations than I can count on one hand.

Of course, we can’t forget that whole CIA leak thing in which it’s rumored that Karl Rove had a part in and will face jail time himself once the truth comes out.

So not only are the most powerful members of the Republican party in the House of Represenatives, Senate, and White House possibly corrupt, but so are other Republican figures in the Justice Department and Office of Management and Budget facing investigations as well. On every level of Government, Republican party leaders are being unmasked as a corrupt and power hungry people who think the law doesn’t apply to them.

Right now the Republican Party stinks of corruption. Thankfully in 2006 we have a change to clean house and restore some small bit of honor and integrity back to government.

Haven’t we heard this line before?

Two key elections are fast approaching. As these milestones approach, we can expect there to be increasing violence from the terrorists. - GWB 9/28/2005

If that line sounds familiar, it’s because the Bush administraion has been repeating it ad-nauseum since day 1:

• As the war draws to a close, we can expect an uptick in violence.
• Untill we capture Saddam, we can expect an uptick in violence.
• As the one year anniversery of the war nears, we can expect an uptick in violence.
• As the handover of power approaches, we can expect an uptick in violence.
• With the US elections coming soon, we can expect an uptick in violence.
• As we prepare to invade Falluja, we can expect an uptick in violence.
• As the anniversery of 9/11 gets closer, we can expect an uptick in violence.
• As elections approach, we can expect an uptick in violence.
• As the draft constitution is being finished up, we can expect an uptick in violence.
• As the constitutional referendum approaches, we can expect an uptick in violence.

Is it just me, or have we spent the past two and a half years preparing for ‘upticks’ or ‘upsurges’ in violent activity in Iraq??

When violence levels are continually increasing, maybe we should stop defining them as ‘upticks’ and just acknowledge that the violence in Iraq is only increasing as time goes on, despite the Bush administration painting an alternative rosy picture.

By popular demand, five new pictures of Emerson (taken with the new camera).

On a related note, last Friday she turned 6 months old!

Over the last month or so, I’ve gotten a number of comments from friends and family complaining about the general lack of new pictures of Emerson. There’s a good reason for the delay of course…

About a month ago we were camping with Bryan and Judy and decided to spend a day ‘tubing’ on the Wisconsin river. However, due to an unfortunate accident, our cooler tube - which was also carrying various personal belongings, including our digital camera, in addition to it’s primary cargo: a cooler of beer - capsized and the plastic baggies we had said belongings in didn’t keep out the water.

While we managed to fish the items out of the river as we floated on, it became apparent that the camera which had served us well for so many years had in fact been deep-sixed. Since then, we’ve been looking at new digital cameras, and finally on Friday on new Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-H1 showed up.

It’s a really nice camera although probably a bit more than we needed, but we figured we’re going to be taking lots of pictures in the next few years and it would pay to have a nice camera on hand during that time.

At any rate, we’ve already been snapping away with it and should have the new pictures up soon!

Nineteen Hundred American troops have now been killed in Iraq. That’s over 100 troops killed in just over a month and a half.

Still no plan for ‘winning’ this war, still no plan for even what defines ‘winning’ from our administration. Only continued rhetoric about freedom, terror, and how we’re ‘making progress’.

Meanwhile, journalists are being pulled off the streets by Iraqi police forces only to be found dead days later with their hands and feet bound; murdered execution style. Iraq’s great march towards freedom/democracy, sponsored in part by our friends at the United States Pentagon, is looking more and more like a meandering parade into an extreme Islamic state where individual rights are trumped by religous edicts, and women are forced back into the role of second class citizens.

Goodbye my lego friends… Now update those bookmarks & links!

After five plus years of having my web site at my five2one.org domain, I’ve decided to move pretty much everything over to this new domain (dancody.org), changed the ‘name’ of my weblog, and of course, the look and feel.

Back in the 90’s when I originally registered the five2one.org & dancody.com domain names (both of which I let expire for a year, then re-registered five2one.org in 2000) things were a lot different. Back then, you just went to Network Solutions and picked out whatever domain name you wanted and they sent you a bill in the mail a few weeks later. Back then, .org addresses were really supposed to only go to registered ‘organizations’. Back then, I was in quite a different place.

Over the last few years as I’ve become more active in political circles, it’s always been tough to pass on my web site to someone who was interested, or trying to tell a family member where pictures of the baby are at… “Ok, so go to five2one.org - yeah, thats f-i-v-e, the number two, one.org - one isn’t a number though, it’s spelled out o-n-e”. I think over the years, about half the people I verbally relayed my web site address to actually made it, and the other half are still trying various combinations of the words and numbers 5-2-1…

So one reason for the move to a new domain is just the ease of relaying my name on to people. Many years ago, I used to have dancody.com, but I never used it and let it expire.. But I’ve always been a .org guy to boot, and that works out because the domain dancody.com is currently taken by a mediocre football player although it doesn’t actually go anywhere. I snapped up danielcody.com and dancody.net though just in case :)

The other big change is the ‘name’ of the weblog, from the venerable ‘A little game I call back in my brain’ to ‘Left of the Lake’, which I’m not 100% sure on. The name change reflects a few things, both related to the way my weblog has evolved over the last six years… At first, it was started as a way to update evolt members on the happenings of the community, then it morphed into a pseudo personal site where I posted about beer and Microsoft, then to a site where I could bitch about certain said evolt members, and over the past three years, into a weblog mostly about American & Wisconsin politics, my serious disdain for George Bush, Linux tips, and pictures of Emerson.

With this newly christened site, I’ll probably continue along that path of posting pictures of the baby, an occasional Microsoft rant, technology commentary, and talking politics. Hence the new name, “Left on the Lake”. I’ve never been one for catchy names or phrases (Cus That’s how I roll!) but I wanted to name my weblog something that reflected what the majority of what I write is about..

A moderately leaning liberal in Milwaukee.

Like I said, I’m not 100% sure of the name yet, and maybe I’ll think of something better or someone will suggest something that sounds nicer, but for now, that’s what I’m going with.. We’ll see if it sticks.

The other change I’ve made is the layout of the site in which I finally depart from my ground breaking right handed navigation that I pioneered back in 2000, when everyone was stuck in the ‘left handed’ dark days of the Web. I’m switching to a ‘left handed’ navigation because as many of you know, I’m all about retro. Everyone is doing ‘right handed’ navigation these days, and I felt like I had explored all that genre had to offer, so I’m re-exploring the medium of what left handed navigation has to offer.

Two things it has to offer is a revamped ‘recent comments’ block and a cleaner, simpler list of links. In fact, the main purpose of the redesign was to put the focus on the weblog part of the site with the WWHOS, articles, and pictures playing as secondary levels.

One of the nice things about switching domain names is the dramatic drop in comment spam attempts to my weblog. Having a well established domain name over the years attracts all sorts of crap, and I’ll be happy to shed the thousands of comments spams I had to deal with every day.

On the flip side of that, I lose all the positive page rank from places like google I’ve aquired over the years. Hopefully the redirects I’ve got in place work out OK, because unlike some people, I don’t judge the value of my web site by what google says I should. Things always work out in the end.

Overall, it feels pretty good to have all this newness with my website. Kind of like a fresh start on my ‘virtual’ life here on the Web. So thanks for stopping by, and if you have any comments on things, feel free to leave them below!

- Dan

Good to see our President’s heart is in the right place:

Bush and Republican congressional leaders, by contrast, are calculating that the U.S. economy can safely absorb a sharp spike in spending and budget deficits, and that the only way to regain public confidence after the stumbling early response to the disaster is to spend whatever it takes to rebuild the region and help Katrina’s victims get back on their feet. - Washington Post

Notice how that says “the only way to regain public confidence in the President and increase poll numbers is to spend whatever it takes”, and not, “the only way to rebuild from the disaster and to help the hundreds of thousands who are affected is to spend whatever it takes”.

One thing I’ve never understood about the Bush administration is their obsession with making it look like they’re doing the right thing rather than just doing the right thing to start. They wouldn’t have had to pull out the huge PR blitz last week in the first place if the President had just done the right thing to begin with. Instead, they focus after the fact on creating the impression that right thing is being done, which more often than not just doesn’t work (on top of being dishonest about it).

The huge amount of money we’re going to be spending on reconstruction along the Gulf Coast should be done because we’re honestly and genuinely concerned with rebuilding the area and helping the people affected by the Hurricane get on with their lives.

The focus of that money should be on repairing the cities and lives of the Gulf Coast, not the President’s reputation.

Jenny and I thought this was a photoshopped picture at first, but it’s straight from the AP:

“I think I may need a bathroom break”?

Our President. The most powerful man on the planet. Asking for a potty break.

This week, the honor of ‘GOP Moron of the Week’ goes to Wisconsin’s very own James Sensenbrenner, who represents the state’s 5th congressinal district, for being one of eleven congressmen who voted against yesterdays $51 billion relief supplemental for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Not only does he get moron of the week, but ‘Heartless Bastard’ of the day, ‘Jerk of the Month’, and ‘Morally Corrupt Conservative of the Century’.

Seriously, this guy is off his rocker and needs to get the hell out of office in 2006. This is probably a good time to mention that Bryan Kennedy is running against Rep. Sensenbrenner in next years race and is raising money for his run.

If you live in the Wauwatosa, Hartford, Brookfield, Mequon, or anywhere else in the 5th CD ask yourself if someone who denies relief funding for victims of America’s worst natural disaster ever represents you and your beliefs.

From the ‘time flies’ catagory, yesterday marks my six month anniversary with UW-Milwaukee! Now I’m a ‘real boy’ (off probation) with real benefits to boot!

Working for the State has had it’s ups and downs so far, but the vast majority of my time here has been great, and it’s been great to have a fulfilling job again after so many years of stagnation.