Daily (haha) update
So it has been almost 10 months since I updated, but that is ok.

In that time I moved to North Carolina and changed schools in the process. I am now at Warren Wilson College (the link is on the left).  At some point I am sure that I will fill you in as to all that I am doing here at school. 

Today was an interesting day.  We met with the WNC chapter of the Network of Spiritual Progressives for the first time.  That movement has a lot of potential in it, not only here locally, but also nationally.  Again, the links for both the local group and the national group are to the side. 

I found something interesting today on Daily Kos.  It was a link to DAV voting records for both the Senate and Congress.  The compiled list is here for the Senate and here for the House.  I went to the DAV main site to get the raw data, and you can do that here. 

There is of course when you look down the list the very obvious trend of Dems supporting the DAV backed measures and the Repugs not.  Now I am not sure about the DAVs overarching politics, but I am going to guess that it is not all that liberal.  I find it interesting that the party that "supports" the troops is also the party that consistently under funds the VA.  Their excuse for it is that "It is not effective" but I know from volunteering at the VA here a little bit that one reason that it is not effective is that it is consistently under funded. 

A break down of some of the people that I get to vote for is here:
Charles Taylor (R, NC-11): 13%

Now the Senators, I do have to admit, are a little better:
Elizabeth Dole (R-NC): 50%
Richard Burr (R-NC): 44%

As I go down the list the only 100% that I see are Dems.  Now I will admit that I might have missed one, but I did double check.  Most interestingly, the vast majority of Repugs were not only substantially behind the Dems in the votes, but were down in Taylor's range.  As for Taylor, an NRA member would not vote for someone with a 13% voting record on gun issues, so why would a Vet vote for someone with that on Vet issues.  This is something that I think we should bang them over the head with.  Here is cold hard fact, a real voting record that can not be disputed, and not just empty rhetoric that "We stand with the Troops."  So not only do they send them to war on bad intel and "Go to war with the Army we have, not the Army we want" but also don't even support them when they get back from the war zone and are disabled.  You can be sure that I am writing the local paper tomorrow, as well as the local VFP chapter, and I am sending the links to Shuler's campaign.  Hell I might even send it to all the media outlets.  Like I said, bang them on the head with this one. 

Another thing on the war effort (the effort to end it that is):  Progressive Dems still have a petition up to support HR4232, which is Jim McGovern's bill to effect an immediate withdrawal from Iraq.  60% of the American people are polling as being opposed to the war in some form.  This is the time to get out and really make a push on this issue.  I know that Colin had the "Pottery Barn Rule" of "you break, you buy" but I am thinking that it is about time to cut out on the check.  The longer we stay in Iraq, we are not only loosing American service personal to the bombs and shells and bullets, but we are increasingly weakening the American position in the World.  We are loosing not only Soft Power, but also Hard Power at such a rate that would have been unfathomable 50 years ago.  When even our allies (the ones that we don't pay for) hate us, you know that we have entered a scary time of de-stability in the world scene as regard American Power.