E!! The True Conservative Story™

Sunshine Review, a wiki project that empowers citizens to share information with one another about their local government(s), has given every state a “transparency rating.”  The rating  is based on whether or not they have websites that provide transparency and how much information the website provides. 

Categories are:  budgets, public meeting minutes, permits and zoning, elected officials, audits, contracts, lobbying, public records, and taxes.

Arizona was #1.  Vermont was #50.  Nevada is #31.  Here are all the rankings:

http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/County_websites%2C_state-by-state_rankings#Comparison_of_county_websites_by_state

This and other similar projects are part of a grassroots push for full online transparency in every county across the nation.  I fully support the cause.

This test is pretty interesting.  (Thanks goes out to Dr. Michael Clifford for pointing me to it.)

I’ve taken the Pew Research Center political spectrum test and others in the past, but this one is a little different.  This not only shows you where you are on the Left/Right axis but also charts you on the spectrum between Authoritarian/Libertarian.  (You’ll see what I mean after you take the test and have your “dot” plotted.)

You can also see where other famous and notorious persons fall on the chart, which is interesting in and of itself.  (For example, I would have thought I was sort of a Maggie Thatcher type, but it turns out I am way more libertarian than she.  I am at exactly the midpoint between the two extremes; she was more to the authoritarian side.)

I’d love to hear where everyone ends up (especially those of you I know either personally or via the blogosphere).  Takes 5 to 10 minutes to answer the questions and the results are instant.

UPDATE:  Getting lots of feedback that people are dissatisfied with the quality and/or clarity of the questions in the test.  The Venerable Mr. Crum says he came out a “centrist” on both the “x” and “y” axis – but rightly points out that on the issues he is often more to the right than me (who came out 6 squares right of center).

This Newsmax story about ongoing investigations into Obama’s fundraising is disturbing.  It’s also long, so I’ll give you some highlights and excerpts (in italics) and encourage you to read the whole thing when you have time:

Over half of the $426.9 million Obama has raised has come from small donors whose names the Obama campaign won’t disclose.  (McCain has made his complete donor database available online, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP)).

 Federal law does not require campaigns to identify donors who give less than $200, but it does require reported running totals for each donor once they go beyond the $200 mark.   

 The FEC breakdown of the Obama campaign has identified a staggering $222.7 million as coming from contributions of $200 or less. (Only $39.6 million comes from identified donors.)

It is the largest pool of unidentified money that has ever flooded into the U.S. election system…

And shennanigans have been discovered:  for example, donors with fake names giving small amounts that far exceed the $2,300 limit for single persons.  In one case, over 1,000 charges of $25 or less came from a donor named “Good Will.”  Total credit card charges:  over $17,000. 

Another donor (”Doodad Pro”) gave $19,500 in 786 separate donations, most of them for $25.

AND

The FEC has compiled a separate database of potentially questionable overseas donations that contains more than 11,500 contributions totaling $33.8 million. More than 520 listed their “state” as “IR,” often an abbreviation for Iran.

More than 1,400 of the overseas entries clearly were U.S. diplomats or military personnel, who gave an APO address overseas. Their total contributions came to just $201,680.

There are a lot of specifics and examples in the story, including instances where the Obama camp was caught in specific wrongdoing and had to agree to return money and discussions about some of the foreign donations.  (The campaign is still under investigation.)

I strongly encourage people to read the Newsmax story – and forward this link.

All are encouraged to visit Culture11 and start reading.  It’s a new magazine of and about American Culture as well as a new online community (groups, discussion threads, buddies, blogs, etc.)  And FWIW, it looks like I’ll be doing some writing for them in the weeks and months to come.

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to
live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same
time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn,
burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders
across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop
and everybody goes “Awww!”    –Jack Kerouac