What the HELL is wrong with you people?

I'm an Edwards supporter turned Obama supporter, but the INSANITY of the Hillary Hatred around here is gonna drive me right through the door any minute now. Oh, it won't be GBCW - the primaries will end SOMEDAY. And hopefully Obama will keep up his momentum and win. But all these self-congratulatory Hillary Hating diaries AND front page stories condemning a still REMOTELY possible Democratic candidate are too much. And sad and tiresome.

If she hasn't already, Hillary will probably lose. So what's the point of TWISTING and TWISTING and then FURTHER TWISTING the freaking knife?? Is there a prize at the end of the Primaries for the Kossack who can hate Hillary with the most spite and vitriol? I hope it's a FABULOUS freaking gift!

I only got a little more if you're up for it -->

Hoping the community can help me out here on a slow 'n quiet Friday night. Yes, this is a personal question type of diary that will push more meaningful diaries down the list - SORRY! But I'm kinda at my wit's end with this and you all are SOOO SMART!!!

I've been getting calls from creditors looking for someone else for over a year. No amount of appealling to their "common sense" seems to work.

More details below, if yer so inclined...

I had an absolutely FANTASTIC time here with the Hyperbolic Insults Explosion! Diary, but it didn't accomplish exactly what I'd set out to do. My goal with these diaries is to allow people from all corners of the primary to state their complaints and "concerns" above the Hidden Comments for all to see. It seems to me that nearly every "Candidate Diary" devolves into ugly accusations of "TROLLING" and personal attacks. Often, the same "offensive concerns" are brought up again and again, only to be shot down where non-TU's can't find the thread. Mostly, those threads quickly become threads that truly SHOULD be hidden after all...

HOWEVER-

I am truly tired of ALL the back and forth screaming at each other that this Primary Season has set off. Not that it's unexpected - I quit lurking as Kerry won the nomination last time around. I know things get ugly, then stay ugly for a while, then rebound to the normal state of MOSTLY not ugly. In the meantime...

I would like to propose a thread, here and now, where ALL sides can vent their most purulent bile - get it outta the way so we can DISCUSS the ISSUES in a civil manner elsewhere! A caveat - when I say vent, I do NOT mean using gratuitous racist or sexist insults. I do NOT want to provide cover for trolls who'd misuse this opportunity to throw out the "B" word or the "N" word - we're better than that. But if you've got a gripe about the way Hillary is ATTACKING Obama - let it OUT! If you think Edwards is a wasted vote - let it OUT! If you think Obama can't win for some reason - let it OUT! And let out these ""CONCERNS"" of yours here and now and, as MUCH as possible, for good!!!

A bit more explanation of why I think this is legitimately important below:

First, and without links, I'd like to express my amazement that one or two articles about a brand new and unproven procedure can send Bushies into exalted self-righteousness over their perceived lack of the need for continued Embryonic Stem Cell Research. Suddenly, a promising but currently unusable breakthrough should make Embryonic Stem Cell studies a thing of the past. And yet, THOUSANDS of pages of research and scientific agreement on the process of Global Warming can be dismissed out of hand due to the financial considerations of his corporate donors. Whatever.

What we need to understand is that while this new stem cell research is PROMISING, it is in no way ready for prime time. It will not be saving people in the very near future, as the procedure is completely unsafe for use in humans at the current time. Also, even the scientists who produced the results(scroll down to first PDF)are saying that their findings should in no way hinder further research using Embryonic Stem Cells. Haven't seen that discussed on the news.

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With all of the interest and disgust that we all feel about the Republican scheme to alter the way Electoral College votes in California are distributed, I decided to look at Presidential Election statistics from the past century. I took stats from Wikipedia and several other sources to find out the National Electoral College vote results and the actual Presidential Vote totals for California each year since 1900.

By taking the number of Electoral College votes that California offered during each election and redistributing them by percentage of the vote each candidate recieved, I then figured out what the changes in the National Electoral College vote totals would be.

Obviously, the totals changed each year - goes without saying. What was interesting is that the change never altered who would have won the Presidential Election. The major change would be the net value of winning the state vote in California.

I posted this a year ago, and have reread it several times since then. Last year, 9/11 was kind of overshadowed by the aftermath of Katrina, but this diary is one that I poured alot of myself into. Nothing has changed - the loss of people close to our hearts is permanent, painful, and unwavering. So, forget the rules, I'm putting this up again as a tribute to those closest to me who I've lost:

9/11 will always be a day of remembering the people who lost their lives that tragic day. Through whatever fortune, I did not lose anyone personally that day, although I know some people who were in the shadow of the Towers when the planes struck. This date now triggers in me strong memories of all of the people in my life who I have lost, and how those people have shaped me into the person that I am today. I hope to share with you a few of those people, and maybe hear from some of you about lost loved ones who have shifted the path of your life as well.

The CrashingTheStates Project begins in a few short days, and there are exciting developments and events falling into place! Aside from our incredible twenty netroots candidates who we will be meeting along the campaign trail, several big names have also agreed to take part. Exact times are still being worked out, but Reality Bites Back and Hekebolos will be meeting Russ Feingold, Harry Reid, John Conyers, John Kerry, Louise Slaughter, and Brad Miller among others. Some of the Bloggers we have lined up include Kos, Jerome Armstrong, Chris Bowers, Joe Trippi and a slew of local bloggers you will hear more about as this project unfolds. And it's not too late - YOU can still be a part of this!!!

But you have to keep reading...

(oh, and please consider throwing a recommend to support the guys and get this info up in front of the masses - it would be a BIG help as we get underway)

In case you are unaware, I'm here to make sure that as many Kossacks as possible are getting excited about the upcoming CrashingTheStates Project. Both Hekebolos and Reality Bites Back are busting their ASSES to get this project together. They are making amazing connections with campaigns across the country, along with some high profile politicians and bloggers who must remain unnamed at this time. I have tricked them into letting me into their inner circle, so I assure you that this project is going to be MUCH larger than than you can even imagine. Preparations here in LA are going SWIMMINGLY! No, REALLY!!

SO, now that I've lured you in with my catchy and fantastical introductory paragraph, let me explain below how you can assist us in making this the biggest netroots success since YearlyKos! (OK, so excuse my enthusiasm, RealityBitesBack has enough to be almost PANDEMICALLY contagious!)

Yesterday, I cobbled together a diary on H.R. 3997: Financial Data Protection Act of 2006 which will make it impossible for Credit Card Holders to freeze their accounts in the event of identity theft until they have already incurred a "significant loss". It also goes to great lengths to protect "consumer reporter" companies from liability in the event of their causing informational breaches. It also lowers standards by which a "consumer reporter" will be compelled to notify the affected individuals of possible security breaches.

The bill defines a "consumer reporter" as

"any entity which regularly engages in assembling or evaluating consumer financial file and consumer reports to furnish consumer reports to third parties or to provide payment for products and services, or for employment purposes."

The House version is sponsored by Steve LaTourette(R-OH). There is also a Senate version sponsored by - SIGH - one of our own - Thomas Carper(D-DE). They may be coming up for a vote within the week.

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If this is old news, let me know immediatlely, and I shall gracefully delete this. On the front page of the online USAToday (I know, lousy paper), there is an article about a new Republican Bill to pass a federalized standard for the freezing of personal credit lines. Instead of being able to simply freeze ones credit in the event that identity theft is feared, one would have to PROVE that a loss had occurred.

"It's like telling someone you can't put a deadbolt on your front door until after you've been burglarized," says Washington state Attorney General Rob McKenna.

Here's a letter dated months ago imploring Congress to rethink the bill.

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(From the diaries. Funny when Bush's internet minions take their cues from the least truthful administration in history -- kos)

After reading Hunter's AMAZING rant on the front page, I followed up by reading the original Blogs for Bush entry along with reader's comments. It's a dark world over there, with alot of back slapping for who delivers the ugliest anti-Democrat one liner. Nothing more shocking than would be expected. But then I looked up a bit at Noonan's response to Hunter's response, and got a bit queasy.

Noonan has listed some UGLY comments that he supposedly culled from responses to Hunter's diary. Problem is, I skimmed ALL of the responses, and found none of them. I looked in Hidden Comments, I even tried to search the comments of the User's he cited. Only one of them even existed, and he had no comments listed on his user page.

I've enjoyed all the diaries here about the inevitable collapse of Bushco because of Hurricane Katrina mismanagement. I just don't believe this will happen. Politics is a soap opera, and just because their hero was a failure in this incident, that fact will not lead them to abandon him in favor of the enemy. The enemy on the Right Wing Soap Opera of America is, of course, us - the Democrats. FoxNews puts Hillary Clinton at the heart of what Democrats stand for, and fair or not, she is hated on their side. Bushco and their Media Minions are still busily building stories to use against us in 2006, downplaying failures in favor of proving that Democrats are out of touch. My 30 Day OReilly Diet showed me exactly how and why we are seen as "out of touch," and no issue is more obviously being ignored by the Left than Jessica's Law.

I want to share a bit of my hard earned insight with you all under the cut -

9/11 will always be a day of remembering the people who lost their lives that tragic day. Through whatever fortune, I did not lose anyone personally that day, although I know some people who were in the shadow of the Towers when the planes struck. This date now triggers in me strong memories of all of the people in my life who I have lost, and how those people have shaped me into the person that I am today. I hope to share with you a few of those people, and maybe hear from some of you about lost loved ones who have shifted the path of your life as well.

I finished my 30 Day Experiment in Ignorance on August 30th, and actually skimmed over a bit of REAL news yesterday! What a relief, but I did not truly catch up as work ate up the majority of my time. That I will fix today. I will then let you know, in yet ANOTHER diary, those news items which were completely absent from my radar as a result of OReilly's bias.

In the meantime, anyone keeping up here will not be at all surprised by the final count of what Bill OReilly spent his on air time discussing. I'm going to put a complete list under the cut, but let me list out the top 3 here, where EVERYONE can see.

TOP THREE OREILLY NEWS STORIES FOR AUGUST:
1) Aruba/Natalee Holloway: 17.9% of airtime, 127 mins, 26 segments
2) Jessica's Law/Child Sex Offenders: 12.6%, 89 mins, 17 segments
3) Cindy Sheehan: 10.7%, 76 minutes, 14 segments

See how out of touch we are at dKos? Anyone here talking about Aruba or Jessica Lunsford? More proof of our blindness below -->

My Experiment in Ignorance is drawing to a close. Monday's Factor was rightfully pre-empted by the tragedy ongoing in New Orleans. Greta van Sustern was on for the entire hour with live reports shown from many areas of the city. I love New Orleans, and my prayers and monetary donations are going out to everyone affected by the hurricane.

Nonetheless, I am going to carry on here with a summary of Week #4 of The Factor. I've summarized the amount of time OReilly devotes to stories as a measure of the importance of that topic to both him and his viewers. Week One is here, and Weeks 2 & 3 are in fancy chart form here.

I'm going to sum up the whole month of my suffering soon. Then, I'm planning to blitz my mind with dKos and other REALITY based news sources to let you guys know what I've been missing. I cannot WAIT for this part of the experiment! For now, here's Week 4 in review:

Welcome to Friday's summary of The Factor. It's sure to displease. Actually, Mr.Bill is off again this Friday (three in a row now?), and John Gibson took over. This means no "Talking Points" and several replayed segments.

The most insane thing about this episode (sorry for the editorialized descriptor) is that Natalee Holloway anchored THREE full segments totally 17 minutes. WTF? Al Sharpton, Pro-Terrorist Italians, and AHnold's Border Problems also showed up. The replay was of the atrocious-the-first-time segment on Brad Pitt and his female sidekicks - WHO CARES!?

Read on, or I'll find you and send video copies of the shows to you - WITHOUT plain brown wrappers!!:

So I'm officially on a Factor Marathon this AM. After yesterday's MOST entertaining segment on Extremists, the follow up had to be less interesting. And it was.

Today we chalk up MAJOR minutes on Jessica's Law. Do not kid yourself, this will be a MAJOR issue in the upcoming elections. I'm hoping that when I come out of my intellectual seclusion that SOMEONE on our side is figuring out a way to counter this upcoming tidal wave before it's already passed us by.

All the rest, including Geraldo Rivera speaking on Natalee Holloway, after the cut: