I have posted the photos I took of the 2008 Green-Rainbow Party convention. You can find them at the GRP Flickr group or at my Flickr 2008 GRP convention photo set. I also posted them at the Green-Rainbow Party Facebook group.
Domains moved over. Yeah!
It took a bit, but it is finally done. I have moved jamesokeefe.org/net/com over to a new domain name provider, and hooked them up to this blog. Email works as well. With this change I can now create subdomains and made the three photo albums on this blog their own subdomains. Also, I added the latest few Twitter posts to the front page and rearranged some of the items.
I am very pleased.
Painting progress: FA Whitestars & Shadow Cruisers/Scouts
Over the last few days I have been able to finish up a bunch of the Babylon 5 miniatures. The sixteen AOG Fleet Action scale Whitestars are done. The three Shadow scouts are done (I glued them together either before priming or after.) The Shadow cruisers just await gluing.
A bit on how I painted them.
For the whitestars I:
- primed them in gray,
- painted them with two coats of Testors Acryl silver paint,
- made up a wash of Floquil German Mauve (i.e. purple) and water (I forgot the ratio, but it was mostly water), and washed the entire miniature since they are small. If it looked like there was too much purple, I would use the brush to better distribute it. I put two coats on the top and one on the bottom. The effect is to give it a splotchy purple/silver pattern,
- painted the weapons in gunmetal,
- finally, after a night or two of drying, I sprayed them with Testors glosscote.
For the Shadow ships I:
- primed them in black,
- painted them with two coats of Floquil NATO Black,
- made a wash of the Testors Acryl Silver (16 drops) and water (80 drops) and spread it over the miniatures using the same technique as the whitestars. I coated both sides twice. As a result the miniatures have bits of silver sprinkled over the black that looks similar to what the ships are supposed to look like [Note: Looking at them now, I think I either needed to add more silver paint
to the wash or do more washes. The silver shows up better when the
light isn't quite as bright as daylight.], - finally, after drying, I sprayed them with Testors glosscote.
I like the way they came out and hope to post pictures before the weekend is over.
Now that I have gotten a hang of the wash technique, I am looking forward to starting work on some of the ancient Greek and Phoenician triremes I primed and sprayed with a tan base coat.
Playing Heroscape with my son
My son has been playing Heroscape for over a year now and quite enjoys it. My wife and I have a fun time playing against him. He has a tendency to set the terrain and forces to suit his tastes. Since that tends to include the monsters, my wife and I are left with the outnumbered humans. We do our best against stacked odds and just have a fun time.
In a recent game we had, he and a friend followed standard practice of selecting all of the heavies and the very advantageous terrain. I decided to even the odds. Since he laid out the terrain and chose the forces, I got to decide from which direction to attack. Naturally, I attacked from the rear. To make sure things weren't too much in my favor, I chose a smaller force that was high on ranged weapons and low on Vikings.
The attack went well and I ended up destroying most of his heavies and his hive. I should have set my objectives better since I let myself get bogged down fighting his light forces instead of destroying his commander. With my remaining Samurai, I got to a hex away from him, before succumbing to his light forces. Oh well.
The next game my son and a different friend set up their side of the board. I setup the side for my wife and I with lots of high terrain that our ranged forces could use to good effect. We did pretty well, holding off my son's light forces and taking down many of the heavies run by my son's friend. Our forces got whittled away, though, and we were left with the Vikings and a lone four-eyed wolf-like beast. I decided to have my remaining forces perform a fighting withdrawal. Amazingly, the four-eyed wolf-beast took down their dragon and I called off the withdrawal and just played to the death. We lost, but took out 2/3 of his force. Everyone had a good time.
Rethinking how California elects its legislature
The New American Foundation just put out one method that California could use to make its legislature more representative (pdf). It looks like a regional form of mixed member proportional representation (MMPR). MMPR is used by Germany to elect the Bundestag (i.e. parliament), and by number of other countries such as New Zealand, and in Scotland and Wales. Various Canadian provinces have entertained adopting it as well. I highly recommend that folks read the report if they are interested in changing our seriously flawed electoral system.
Black it is
With some help, I was able to put on two coats of black on the six Shadow ships, the two Torvalus Dark Knives and the one Traveler ship I have. I also painted the fleet scale Whitestars silver and their bases black. Next the detailing.
The cost of the wall street bailout keeps growing
The New York Times has a set of graphs on the cost of the wall street bailout so far, both in dollars spent and in pledged. So far, $1363 billion dollars has been spent. $7.8 trillion, i.e. $7800 billion, has been pledged.
To give you an idea as to how much that is, the US debt is over $10.6 trillion and total US government spending in 2007 was about $2.7 trillion.
Thanks to The Big Picture for the link to the NYTimes.
I Stand with Chuck!
I stand with Chuck Turner in his fight against the accusations the FBI has made against him. I urge folks to check out the Support for Chuck Turner website and come out for the press conference and rally on Wednesday, November 26 at Chuck Turner's District Office at 51 Roxbury Street, Roxbury, MA 02119.
I'll leave you all with the following letters, which were emailed to me, but could not find on the web:
Case of Chuck Turner is different than Dianne Wilkerson
Howie Rotman
SEIU1199er at Boston Medical Center (ground zero)
I agree completely with Danny Schechter's call : *"Free Chuck Turner"
"Free Ourselves"*.
"Free Ourselves"*.
Danny is *RIGHT ON* when he says "this is not just an attack on a politician but an attack on all of us, an attempt to discredit a leader supporting the fight against a dangerous Biolab program.
As a civil rights and anti-war activist since the 60's ; and union activist for almost 4 decades at Boston City Hospital/ Boston Medical Center, I also have known Chuck Turner as a committed community organizer of the highest principles. When some people at Boston Medical Center tell me that they don't vote, "because all politicians are crooked", I always tell them that I understand their feeling, and hold similar views. And then I go on to say, there are a small number of politicians that I entirely trust. I always give as an example one politician that can be trusted… a COMMUNITY ACTIVIST… who just happens to be an elected official on the Boston City Council … Chuck Turner. Over the decades I have witnessed Chuck Turner turn up at
meetings for social justice causes that are totally out of the limelight, meetings where */only a handful/* of progressive activists have taken the time to show up.
From what I know about the character of Chuck Turner, I agree with Danny Schechter's statement below, that "we must *ASSUME* his innocence and see this for what it is: one last shot by a lacking in all credibility Bush Administration Justice Department in the aftermath of the Obama victory." From the FBI affidavit I have seen in print, this is a clear case of entrapment of a man that is not prone to be materialistically self serving. The FBI affidavit against Chuck admits that a "second attempt" to entrap Chuck with a monetary favor was futile.
Chuck Turner is not Dianne Wilkerson. Chuck does not have a lifestyle of house arrest for failure to pay taxes. He would not disrespect the people in his community the way Dianne did by refusing to pay condo fees , thereby putting the burden of upkeep of property shared with
neighbors on the neighbors who had to go to court to force Dianne Wilkerson to contribute her share.
Unlike Dianne Wilkerson, Chuck Turner would not put the people in his legislative district and surrounding communities at risk of DEATH by exposure to incurable biological pathogens used in weapons of mass destruction that are planned to be experimented on at a level 4 bioterror lab at the BU Medical Center Campus in South End/ Roxbury. Chuck is a leading opponent of the bioterror lab. Chuck is a principle author of the ORDINANCE before the Boston City Council on December 15 at 6pm, an ORDINANCE which seeks to ban research on biological agents used in weapons of mass destruction, that the United States used to justify its entrance into Iraq, a search that turned up nothing.
(Ironically, if BU/ BMC 's level 4 lab was "found" in Iraq, that would have "justified" the US invasion.)
Support Chuck Turner !!!
Come to the Boston City Council Hearing on the bioterror lab on
December 15, 2008, 5th floor City Hall, 6pm.
December 15, 2008, 5th floor City Hall, 6pm.
"Danny Schechter" <danny@mediachannel.org> wrote:
Journalist and filmmaker Danny Schechter here….
I have known Chuck Turner from when we worked together back in the l960's in the civil rights movement. He was always a committed community organizer of the highest integrity. He has also always been a principled and courageous stand-up public servant.
We must ASSUME his innocence and see this for what it is: one last shot by a lacking in all credibility Bush Administration Justice Department in the aftermath of the Obama victory. This is not just an attack on a politician but an attack on all of us, an attempt to discredit a leader supporting the fight against a dangerous Biolab program.
It comes just weeks after the FBI admitted it has NOT been pursuing white collar criminals connected to the housing and financial crisis because of funding cutbacks. Yet, somehow, it has the money and the time for a well calculated entrapment stunt like this.
I am confident that Chuck will discredit whatever case the government brings against him, and all of us who know him and love him have to stand with him against this smear on his distinguished career of public service.
Free Chuck Turner. Free Ourselves.
DANNY SCHECHTER
"News Dissector"
On maintaining first-mover advantage
These last few days, I have been reminded twice that you need to work hard to keep your first-mover advantage. One way to deal with falling behind in such as case is to side step the competition and compete elsewhere. Banal, I know, but we all need a reminder at times.
Live blogging the GRP convention
I have no idea whether there will be wifi at the GRP convention today. However, I will be live blogging the convention, either here or on my twitter account. Hope to see you there.
NOTE: I forgot my camera's download cable, so pictures will have to wait until tonight. I'll put them up at the GRP flickr group.
10:10am Arrived and checked in
10:15am Didn't have wifi yet – twittered the 1st post, now have wifi, yeah!
10:20am Caught the last of the opening plenary:
- Sandra Harris spoke on anti military recruiting
- Nancy Lee wood speaking on peak oil
- Ben Grosscup from NOFA speaking on community farm initiative
10:31am Plenary over, Nat Fortune, co-chair, is thanking plenary participants, convention comm. and Steve Baer for food, Telling us what is next and where the workshops are. I will not post for the next hour because I have to go run a workshop.
10:40-11:35am lead the Growing Our Membership workshop – great discussion from members throughout the state about local organizing and growing our membership. Focus on developing goals/strategy for you, your local area and the state party.
12:10pm Office holder plenary started. Arthur Conquest, Brookline town meeting member, is speaking and, rightfully, chiding us for the lack of latino and african-americans at the convention, that we need to broaden our membership and that we must support Chuck Turner. Amen!
12:20pm Other candidate statements and open questions
12:55am Question: how do you keep elected offices accountable: Luc suggested using Chuck Turner's district roundtables
01:02pm Lunch is starting, GRP nominations for Administrative Committee to follow after that.
01:46pm Been having a fun time with the local McKinney campaign organizers talking about the lessons of the campaign. Folks are eating and mingling.
02:12pm Merelice is talking about the rest of the convention with nominations and elections to the Administrative Committee and our representatives of to the national party up next.
02:26pm Nominations are being proposed and candidates are speaking:
Female Co-Chair: Martina Robinson, Jill Stein
Male Co-Chair: Eli Beckerman
Secretary: John Andrews
Treasurer: Merelice
Membership Director: Lee Scott Laugenour
Fundraising Director: David Dionne
Communications Director: Grace Ross, Lloyd Smith, John Andrews (withdrew)
Female National Rep: none
Male National Rep: Lee Scott Laugenour
Female Alternate National Rep: Jamie McLaughlin
Male Alternate National Rep: none
03:14pm Break up for workshops. Since I am not running one, I will be taking pictures and posting them later.
03:58pm Heading home. See you all later!
Update: I heard that the winners for the elections were:
Female Co-Chair: Jill Stein
Male Co-Chair: Eli Beckerman
Secretary: John Andrews
Treasurer: Merelice
Membership Director: Lee Scott Laugenour
Fundraising Director: David Dionne
Communications Director: Lloyd Smith
Male National Rep: Lee Scott Laugenour
Female Alternate National Rep: Jamie McLaughlin
At least one person's take on the convention is posted at the GRP Facebook group.