Burnt Orange Report

Burnt Orange Reporters

By Karl-Thomas Musselman

Thanks to all of those that submitted their interest and information to us in regards to writing for BOR. At this time we will close the application process and begin the deliberation and voting process. I hope to have this wrapped up by next Monday when we will announce those that will be joining us on BOR. Accounts will then be created and the new writers will be asked to introduce themselves.

On the Applications...

By Byron LaMasters

If you would like to write for BOR, remember, we'd like to see your application really soon. Tonight was to be the last night, but if you need a little extra time, send an e-mail to us to let us know it's on the way. But at the least, let us know your intent today. For those that have applied, we will be in touch soon. ~Karl-Thomas

We have received several applications for new writers on BOR, and both Karl-Thomas and I spoke last night on how we are pleased with the quality of the applications thus far. We would both like to add new writers as soon as possible, but we want to give people who are considering applying a few more days. Unless anyone objects, let's make the deadline this Sunday, June 12.

For those of you who missed the application post, click here for details.

Joining the BOR Team...

By Byron LaMasters

While I will be posting much less frequently, all BOR writers want this blog to build on the success that we have had over the past two years. In order to do this, we will need fresh faces and energy to ensure that BOR continues to be professional, progressive, Democratic and student-led. We are seeking 2-4 people that can join the BOR team, and blog on a regular basis. Here are some of the things that we are looking for in potential candidates. These are not necessarily requirements, but rather things that we are specifically looking for:

• Candidates should have a passion for writing. Blogging should not be a chore, but rather should be something that is fun and enjoyable. Bloggers joining our team should commit to writing a minimum of 3-4 posts most weeks, and perhaps as many as several posts a day.
• Candidates should be a Democrat. Although our bloggers vary in our ideology, we are all Democrats and BOR is a Democratic blog.
• In addition to being a Democrat, candidates should regularly follow Texas politics. Candidates with experience attending political events, fundraisers and volunteering are preferred.
• Candidates should also be in Texas. Our niche is Texas politics from a student Democratic perspective. Ideally, candidates should be students (UT or UT system students preferred) as well.
• Candidates should be interested in writing primarily about Texas politics. We cover national politics, but our main focus is Texas politics.
• Candidates should have basic HTML skills. While blogging does not require a great deal of HTML knowledge, candidates should know the basics – links, posting images, blockquotes, italics, bold, etc.
• Previous blogging experience is a big plus. Whether it be a previous or current blog, or simply Kos or MyDD diaries, this experience is valuable to anyone interested in writing for BOR. Absent blogging experience, regular readers, people who have previously written for their high school or college newspaper and BOR commenters will also receive strong consideration.
• Candidates with specific interest and detailed knowledge of local politics are strongly encouraged. I would like to find someone to take my place writing frequently about Dallas, and we can certainly use people with in-depth knowledge of local politics in San Antonio, El Paso, Houston, the valley and west Texas.
• Women and minorities are strongly encouraged. We are all aware that the blogosphere is overwhelmingly White and male. This shouldn’t be intended to discourage anyone from applying to write for us, but we would simply like to strongly encourage female and minorities that have an interest in blogging to consider applying.

If you believe that this may be you, then we hope that you will apply to join our team. Writing for BOR is a great opportunity to become more involved in politics and activism. BOR is read by about 60,000 visitors a month, and blogging for us is certainly one way to get yourself read and known by leaders and activists in the Texas Democratic Party.

If you would like to apply, please email the following to:
Apply@BurntOrangeReport.com

• Please tell us about yourself in a paragraph or two. This should include your name, age, hometown, school attending/attended, major, party affiliation, political experience, blogging/writing experience and interests (political and otherwise).
• Please tell us why you would like to write for BOR, and what you believe that you can specifically add to our community.
• We would also like candidates to include a minimum of two writing samples. If you have previously blogged or have articles online, send us the two or more that you believe are best reflective of your work. If you do not have any of your work online, we would like you to write at least two samples of the type of posts that you would contribute to BOR. These samples can be quoting a news article and including commentary, writing an opinion piece about a specific issue or writing your thoughts on any recent event – the end of the legislative session, school finance, the looming 2006 GOP primary in Texas, news and results from local municipal elections, or anything else.

I hope to see a lot of applications, and I don’t want to put up a deadline yet. We would like to be able to start making some decisions by next week. We’ll make an announcement in the coming days on when we will be closing the application process. If we have more quality submissions than we are able to ask to join our team, then we may ask our readers to get involved by posting the samples and asking our readers to share our thoughts via comments or email.

If you have any questions about the process, please email us at: Apply@BurntOrangeReport.com. Jim, Karl-Thomas, Andrew and I all have access to this account, so all four of us will be reviewing applications.

Changes in my life, BOR

By Byron LaMasters

Dear Readers and Friends,

As you all may have noticed, my posting over the past weeks has decreased as I have undergone the process of transition from student to life after college. I recently received my undergraduate degree at UT-Austin with a B.A. in government and history, and I have spent much time over the past months considering what to do next. While there is a good chance that I will eventually continue my education, I have decided that after spending the vast majority of my life as a student, I would like to take some time to focus on my career.

Those of you who know me, and those of you who read BOR on a regular basis know that my passion is politics. I live and breathe politics. And I have desired a career in politics where I will have the ability to work with candidates, consultants and most importantly, help elect Democrats to all levels of office. Fortunately, I was offered a job in this regard with the Tyson Organization, and I have accepted their offer. Tyson is a Democratic political consulting firm in Fort Worth with a national client list, and I will begin working for them next Wednesday, June 8. I am very excited about this opportunity, and have committed to work for Tyson through December 2006.

Due to nature of blogging and political consulting, it will be impossible to continue blogging in the same manner as I have in the past. I have consistently sought to maintain the highest standard of ethics at the Burnt Orange Report in regards to disclosing any potential conflicts of interest, and I do not want there to be any doubt regarding my intentions. Since it will be impossible to include full disclaimers of the many Tyson clients on BOR, I have decided to limit my blogging on BOR. Effective Wednesday, I will no longer blog on any topic that would present a possible conflict of interest with the Tyson Organization, or place myself in such situation. In this regard, I will no long post on Democratic primary elections, municipal elections or elections involving Tyson clients. I still plan to post occasionally on issues that I care about, and on the silly things that Republicans often do from time to time, but my blogging will be greatly reduced.

Furthermore, I will be selling the Burnt Orange Report to Karl-Thomas Musselman in the coming weeks (I have consulted Jim and Andrew on this as well). Karl-Thomas and I have agreed to a basic framework of a sale, and we hope to finalize everything in the next week or two. I have decided that this is the best decision for me, my future employer and the blog. I want Karl-Thomas, Andrew, Jim (and all other current and future writers) to be able to write their conscience about Democratic primary races and municipal races without regard to my employer. The best way to do this, in my opinion, is to remove ownership, editorial discretion and future advertising and revenue rights from my control.

Having said all of this, the Burnt Orange Report has been an important part of my life for the past two years, and more than anything, I desire its continued success. In the next couple of days we will lay out a process to add new contributors to BOR. All founding members and frequent contributors will take a leading role in ensuring that BOR continues to be professional, progressive, Democratic and student-led. We will lay out an application process for new writers to BOR. We would like to add at least 2-4 new regular contributors, and perhaps some less frequent guest posters as well. If you are interested in writing for BOR – especially if you are a Democratic UT student, or frequent commenter, I hope that you will consider applying to join our team.

Finally, thank you all for your support, your loyal readership and your informed feedback. I am very excited to be entering a new stage in my life, and I know that the future of BOR is bright with Karl-Thomas at the helm.

Thank you,
Byron LaMasters
Byron AT BurntOrangeReport DOT com

Blogging this Week

By Byron LaMasters

I just wanted to briefly apologize for the minimal amount of posts this week. I'm busy graduating, and I'll be busy with family obligations over the next several days. Karl-Thomas is struggling with his antiquated dial-up connection in Fredericksburg, and I assume that Jim is either tackling or recovering from law school finals. As for Andrew... I don't know what his excuse is...

Done

By Byron LaMasters

I just finished the last exam of my last course of my last semester for my undergraduate degree. It's a weird feeling. I'll be graduating next Friday.

Take the Pew Test

By Byron LaMasters

Take it, here. They call me a liberal. Shocker. What are you?

How Republican Are you?

By Byron LaMasters

Since I have nothing better to post this morning, I'm stealing this quiz from Pink Dome.

Take it, here.

My results?

Well, I am not 20% Republican. I've never voted for one in my life, but yes, I agree with the above statement.

Comments are Back

By Byron LaMasters

Just in time to comment about Ann Coulter and the anti-booty bill!

Comments

By Byron LaMasters

I'm sorry that the comments are down today. I have a support request into Dreamhost, so I hope that the problem will be resolved as soon as posible. Until then, feel free to email if you need to contact me - Byron AT BurntOrangeReport DOT com.

Karl-Thomas on the front page

By Byron LaMasters

I probably wasn't the only one a little bit surprised to see this picture when I opened up my Daily Texan today.

Your Ever-Impenetrable Burnt Orange Report -- now with five percent more evil!

By Jim Dallas

I got this idea from Kevin Drum, who writes at an 8th grade level, so blame him.

I conducted a readability analysis using this website of the last ten posts by Byron, Karl-Thomas, and myself. I didn't analyze Katie, Dobbs, Andrea, or anyone else, since there aren't a whole lot of recent posts from them. Full results below the fold.

The results? Well, let's just say you'd better have at least a tenth-grade education:

Jim - Flesch-Kincaid Grade: 9.53

Byron - Flesch-Kincaid Grade: 9.98

Karl-Thomas - Flesch-Kincaid Grade: 8.50

All Fog indices were higher than 11.6. This is roughly equivalent to the Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, I re-analyzed BOR's RSS stream using the gematriculator, which reports that:

Granted, this is a slight change in methodology from our last report, which probably explains how the presence of an aspiring lawyer only results in a five percent increase. Then again, we've added Katie as a contributor since, so I'm sure that gives us a lot of "light side of the Force" brownie scout points.

Which reminds me, one month until the last Star Wars and two weeks until the fourth season of The Family Guy debuts!

Jim:

Summary Value
Total sentences 154
Total words 2,520
Average words per Sentence 16.36
Words with 1 Syllable 1,612
Words with 2 Syllables 486
Words with 3 Syllables 271
Words with 4 or more Syllables 151
Percentage of word with three or more syllables 16.75%
Average Syllables per Word 1.59
Gunning Fog Index 13.24
Flesch Reading Ease 55.91
Flesch-Kincaid Grade 9.53

Byron:

Summary Value
Total sentences 107
Total words 1,899
Average words per Sentence 17.75
Words with 1 Syllable 1,182
Words with 2 Syllables 407
Words with 3 Syllables 235
Words with 4 or more Syllables 75
Percentage of word with three or more syllables 16.32%
Average Syllables per Word 1.58
Gunning Fog Index 13.63
Flesch Reading Ease 55.13
Flesch-Kincaid Grade 9.98

Karl-Thomas:

Summary Value
Total sentences 158
Total words 2,644
Average words per Sentence 16.73
Words with 1 Syllable 1,748
Words with 2 Syllables 570
Words with 3 Syllables 257
Words with 4 or more Syllables 69
Percentage of word with three or more syllables 12.33%
Average Syllables per Word 1.49
Gunning Fog Index 11.63
Flesch Reading Ease 63.94
Flesch-Kincaid Grade 8.50

TYD Elections

By Byron LaMasters

As Jim noted below, we held our Texas Young Democrats (TYD) convention this weekend. I first became involved in TYD's in 2002, and this year was the largest convention since that time. Much of the reason for the increase in involvement has been due to several contested elections, along with renewed interest in working to take back Texas for the Democratic Party.

I was actively involved in the convention, and hosted the workshop on weblogs and websites where I tried my best to restrain myself from speaking too much, and asked my panel of BORers Jim Dallas and Karl-Thomas Musselman (also UT webmaster), and Dallas County YD webmaster Kirk McPike to speak on many of the questions that the workshop participants asked.

The elections today were the first contested elections since I became involved in TYD. My friend Mike Apodaca of El Paso was elected president unanimously. I ran on a ticket with several other candidates, and all of us were elected, including the three of us in contested elections.

David Wilkins (Dallas Co. YDs) defeated Erica Contreras (Harris Co. YDs) for Executive Vice President by a vote of 40-31. I defeated Bill Kelly (Harris Co. YDs) for VP of Finance by a vote of 46-25, and Angel Lopez (San Antonio YDs) defeated Jess Kline (UNT UDs) for VP of Membership by a vote of 39-32. It may surprise many of you that UT Democrats and Aggie Democrats voted together in all three races. Tonight, just this once, I will oblige our Aggie Friends with one token "Gig 'em" to show our appreciation.

My successor as UT UD President, Haley Greer (Capitol City YDs), was elected Treasurer without opposition. DCYD President David Hardt (Dallas Co. YDs) was re-elected as National Committeeman, and Shondra Wygal (Harris Co. YD) was re-elected as Secretary unopposed. After defeating Erica Contreras for Executive VP, David Wilkins nominated Erica for Chair of the Regional Directors, where Erica was elected without opposition.

Katie Naranjo of the UT UDs ran to replace me as Region 6 Director, and she was elected without opposition. Karl-Thomas decided to run for Region 6 Judicial Director, and he also was elected unanimously.

I am looking forward to serving as the next TYD Vice President of Finance. As VP of Finance, I will chair the Committee of Budget and Finance, and I hope that my former opponent will serve as a member of that committee, because he has many good ideas and connections to offer for our organization.

During the next year, I am looking forward to working with major donors as well as enacting a sustaining membership program so that the TYDs will be on solid financial footing going into the 2006 elections. As soon as our sustaining membership program gets underway, I'll be sure to inform our readers of all the details.

Texas Young Democrats, Liveblogging Kerry

By Byron LaMasters

Today kicked off the Texas Young Democrats convention, and our fundraiser at Scholtz's was a rousing success. More importantly, it provided the first opportunity in just about all of our memories for much of the BOR team to meet in one place. When we realized that five BORers were at one place, and I just happened to have my digital camera, we had no choice but to take a picture. It could have turned out better, but you take what you get (Jim, Karl-Thomas, Katie, Andrew and Byron left-to-right):

We had a little better luck with pictures of some of our guest speakers. U.S. Senate candidate Barbara Radnofsky kicked spoke first, followed by State Rep. Mark Strama (D-Austin) and former Congressman Chris Bell (D-Houston). Here's some pictures I caught of them:

Finally, I have press credentials for the Kerry event at UT tomorrow (or rather, later this morning). I plan to liveblog the event, and I just might be able to get an audio copy as well.

Please Welcome Katie

By Byron LaMasters

I hope that you all will join me in welcoming Katie Naranjo to the Burnt Orange Report. Katie is the Secretary of the UT University Democrats, and is running to be my successor as Region 6 Director of the Texas Young Democrats. I support Katie to fill my seat as I am not running for re-election, and am running to be Vice President of Finance of the Texas Young Democrats. Katie is a freshman at UT, and she asked to join the BOR team. I've seen BOR's number one weakness for awhile as our failure to have a consistent female poster, so I was delighted when I learned of Katie's interest in posting on BOR. Please welcome her to our site, and I look forward to hearing more from her.

We're One Big Happy Family. Yessirreee.

By Jim Dallas

Andrew caught a little flak for his post regarding Terri Schiavo, but one comment struck me as particularly, well mean, but also constructive, in the sense that it suggested Andrew start a spin-off blog.

Really, I happen to believe everyone should start at least one blog, and perhaps more! I have my own side blog. As does Karl-Thomas. It's a good idea.

However, I don't want to suggest by any means that Andrew should leave. Absolutely not! We're not all on the same page here at Burnt Orange. And indeed, the ideological meanderings have kept things interesting. For example:

• Andrew and I are both mostly against gun control. My understanding is Byron and Karl-Thomas are mostly for it (correct me if I'm wrong).
• I'm not exactly super progressive in gender politics; occasional poster Andrea, umm, is.
• Ever since leaving Austin, I've occasionally drifted off into obnoxious libertarian land, with Chicago School-influence rantings about why smoking shouldn't be banned(just to name one post), and the infamous "maybe Newt Gingrich is right about health care" post.
• I know Karl-Thomas has a tremendous faith in grassroots democracy, which has occasionally made a few of his posts regarding Howard Dean unintentionally amusing. Of course, he's not the only one.
• As for Byron, he's way too smart and usually right about everything. That really is all I got to say. Although he's got really weird musical preferences.

That said, we here represent only a tiny slice of the wonderful ideological diversity in the Texas Democratic Party. And while we're not always running the same plays, we're all on the same team!

Tom Musselman for City Council

By Byron LaMasters

Karl-Thomas's father is running for Fredericksburg city council. Tell your friends in Fredricksburg to support Tom Musselman for Fredericksburg City Council. I would encourage you all to donate to the campaign, but apparently Fredericksburg city council candidates rarely receive outside funding, so that would be bad form. Regardless, Karl-Thomas's father has extensive conections in Fredericksburg, and would be a great service to the council. Learn more about his campaign here.

Update: There's a (sort-of) blog here.

My Moral Dilemma on Abortion

By Andrew Dobbs

I have been struggling with a rather significant moral crisis of late, really over the last few days. For months I’ve been considering the repercussions and various thoughts behind some of these issues, but some news I read recently put the issue into context, brought it out into full relief and plunged me into this distress. I trust you all and I want to hear what you all think about this one, so please read this rather lengthy post and respectfully comment as you see fit.

Earlier this week I read some coverage of a new euthanasia policy under consideration in the Netherlands. The Netherlands already has laws that allow euthanasia, but the new policies are quite a bit beyond that. The policy would allow the parents of a child born severely deformed or diseased to the point that their life would likely be short to euthanize the infant. In essence, if the child is born with such a condition that they will apparently live a short and “unfulfilling” or painful life, the parents can kill the child after it has already been born.

I find this to be so morally repugnant as to barely need explanation. The ending of an innocent human life is a crime, a catastrophe, something that we should all condemn. If a grown person seeks to end their life rather than suffer a terrible illness and the subsequent loss of dignity, it is my conviction that such is their right (though I believe that physician-assisted suicide violates medical ethics). But an infant has no way of communicating its intentions. Furthermore, many of the illnesses that parents will be able to “treat” with killing their child will be ones that cause no pain for the infant, though the experience will clearly be traumatic for the family. Should one be able to off granny just because taking care of her is a pain- whether granny wants to go or not? Clearly not. An infant is an even more clear case of innocence. So when you kill a living human without its consent, only for one’s own convenience or peace of mind, it is wrong, and this policy is wrong.

Still, this made me ask some tough questions. What is the difference between that infant and a fetus that is a few days or a couple of weeks from being born? What is the difference between that fetus and one that was first conceived months before? Are they living? Are they human? If they are a living human life, shouldn’t ending that life simply for convenience or social and economic stability be just as abhorrent as killing a new born baby or any other innocent human being? If they are living humans, clearly this is repugnant.

So I began to think and ask questions. I am a person of faith, but I decided that since public policy shouldn’t be based on any particular religious worldview, I wouldn’t consider arguments based on religious grounds. I also figured that I should use logic and science and not propaganda, so I decided to stay away from anti-abortion groups and their rhetoric. I decided that one question was of primary importance: when does life begin? When is something a living human? If that is at birth, then abortion is perfectly fine (on a secular level, at least). If, however, that is before then, then abortion after that point is in fact murder, and is a grievous crime.

I began by simply considering the fact that we could be wrong. If we are convinced that life only begins at birth and that we then allow people to terminate their pregnancies, and we then find out at some point that the “fetus” was actually a human life, what will the consequences be? Still, this was one of those religious arguments that I said that I would ignore for the time-being. Additionally, this same line of argumentation could be used to justify outlawing or refraining from pretty much anything. So it seems to be an argumentative fallacy.

So I then decided that I would go to the people whose job it is to study life- biologists. I went online and looked around scientific websites for the scientific definition of life. What I found was that life is usually defined as an entity made up of at least one cell, that can and has evolved, that can at some point in its lifecycle reproduce, grows, has metabolism and respiration, has genetic material such as DNA or RNA, has at least internal movement, has structural organization and has not yet died. Now, not all living things share all of these characteristics- male mules can’t reproduce, some single cell organisms don’t have respiration but rather other chemical processes- and some non-living things share these- viruses have DNA, fire can grow, reproduce and metabolize. Still, anything that has most of these is “living.” Let’s look at a newly fertilized zygote. It is made of cellular material, it is a part of the lifecycle of an organism that has evolved, will at one point be able to reproduce, it clearly grows, it has metabolism and respiration, it has DNA, has internal motion (and once it develops further- in only a short few weeks- it will be able to move independently) and clearly has not yet died. It seems clear that in terms of biology, from the moment of fertilization the organism is “living.”

Still, it seems that even with all of these life is defined more by just knowing what is alive or not than any kind of rigorous set of tests. I suppose that evolution, the presence of at least one cell, metabolism and the fact that it has yet to die would be the most important- no nonliving thing evolves, has cells and metabolizes things and by their very definition all things have yet to die, I believe all living things have evolved or can evolve, have at least one cell (correct me if I am wrong) and all have to convert raw materials (food) into energy- metabolism. Human fetuses have evolved, they have many cells (and have two at the moment of conception), they metabolize food and they are not dead. These would seem to confirm that they are alive.

So after that debate I decided to see what scientists define as the life cycle of a human being. The life cycle is just what it sounds like- the series of events that occur in the life of an organism. At any point in this cycle the organism is alive, except for the point of death, which is usually included as the end of the cycle. If the human life cycle is just birth, infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, old age and death, then everything before that is “pre-living” or not living. But the majority of scientists believe that it begins before birth. Most include fertilization and prenatal development in the human life cycle. While some see birth as the beginning, these theories tend to rely more on philosophical underpinnings- i.e. the recognition of self and so forth- rather than pure biology. This suggests that scientists- who are paid to not let personal or religious bias into their work- tend to regard life as beginning at fertilization. The pre-birth period is as much a part of life as infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age this seems to say. To end an innocent life in any of those other periods would get you sent to prison, possibly to death. Why is ending a life before that legal?

So I started coming up with arguments to counter these slightly frightening facts. First, I considered the fact of development. A zygote is barely developed- it doesn’t look like a human, it doesn’t act like a human, etc. As a result, it really shouldn’t be considered “human life.” Yet isn’t an infant undeveloped? It doesn’t act like a fully mature human nor does it really look much like one. We wouldn’t kill an infant so why is killing just a slightly less developed human any less of an atrocity? It seems that the fact that fetuses aren’t developed isn’t a good excuse to allow for abortion.

Another argument I considered was that this life is different from other types of life in that it is dependent on another human not just for care and provision, but for even the most basic of functions. Its waste is carried out by another person, its breath and food is actually shared by another person. It is clearly a much different form of life than the traditional conception of “human.” Still, when one starts making distinctions between living humans and declares a whole class of them fit for extermination, isn’t that absolutely abhorrent? Isn’t that the idea at the very heart of genocide? If we acknowledge the biological fact that a fetus is alive and it is human, yet a different form of human life, and we then decide that this particular variety of human life can be exterminated at will how are we any better than the Nazis or the butchers in Somalia, Sudan, Japan in World War II or other genocidal regimes? In fact, it seems, we are not if those things are true.

What about rape, incest or the life of the mother, I asked then. The last of these is the easiest to answer in this case- self-defense is a recognized defense for homicide. When carrying a child to term would likely kill the mother, the mother has a right to protect her own life as well and should be able to terminate the pregnancy. Rape and incest are far more pernicious problems. The woman has already been victimized and now has a horrible reminder of the crime. Still, the child did not choose to be conceived and was not the perpetrator of the crime. That the life is innocent, and should not be ended for the crimes of another is the simple answer, but some serious wrinkles remain. Incest caries the likelihood of genetic deformity and a painful life for the child, yet whose say is it to decide for that child whether this pain and deformity is justification to end its life? Still, for incest I can see an argument for ending the pregnancy, though it is a gray area. Rape is a bit more complicated, but one could say that nine months of carrying a child could cause serious trauma to the mother, and thus an abortion could be justified. But as we said earlier (when discussing the Netherlands), being distressed or psychologically burdened by another person is not a justification for killing them, merely a motive. Either way, we need a far better adoption and foster home system than the one in place today for all these cases and others.

In the end, I am now on the verge of being convinced that life- scientifically, biologically and factually speaking- begins at conception, and after that any unnecessary ending of that life is in fact a grievous thing that should be made illegal. I say “on the verge” because such important changes of opinion shouldn’t be undertaken lightly. I have changed a lot over the last several years, mostly because the university has made me open my mind, open my eyes and consider a broad range of ideas. This process of open-mindedness has led me to this point, and this might be the biggest change of them all.

But I will remain a Democrat, and if anything this will make me more progressive. The reason is simple: I value human life at all of its stages and it is ludicrous to say that we will protect a life before it is born, but leave it to the wolves after it is born. If anything, the whole line of thought on the sanctity of life is making me go back to my old position on the death penalty, opposition rather than the openness I had held of late. Furthermore, if we simply outlaw abortions, nothing much will change. Before abortion was legal women got abortions and if it were made illegal again today it would still happen. With illegal abortions come unsanitary and unprofessional practices which threaten the life not only of the unborn child, but of the mother as well. It is a dangerous thing to do. If unborn children are in fact alive, it is a moral imperative that abortion be outlawed, but it is a coincident moral imperative that we make it easier to have an unplanned child to prevent “back-alley” abortions as well as huge new burdens to women in this country.

These protections should be child-based rather than parent-based in order to prevent the phenomenon (at one point a reality in this country) where having a child out of wedlock is a free ride to a government check. Poor women for years had a serious economic incentive to have children out of wedlock while they were young- the opportunities for advancement were scarce, money was available without much work, so they had children- and we should avoid this. I say this not because I’m a cold-hearted stingy type, but rather because the number one predictor for poverty in this country is whether you have both parents in the home. I want to prevent poverty, and ending out of wedlock pregnancies is step one. There are several important policies that will make it easier to handle an unplanned pregnancy without encouraging young women to plan out of wedlock pregnancies. Medical coverage for children should be universal. Child care should be free for everyone who can’t afford it. Clothes for children, decent housing (with some work requirements, so as not to encourage the phenomenon discussed earlier), a world-class education system and other necessities should be provided.

Furthermore, women who would face serious repercussions for revealing the pregnancy should have a safe place to turn to- not some depressing place as in the old days, where they were either demonized or isolated- but rather a welcoming home for them. This may cause young women in abusive or simply unhappy homes to get pregnant as a ticket out, but that means we need better child protective services to prevent abuse from happening in the first place and better school counseling and other mental health services to make sure they have constructive ways of dealing with their problems.

I also mentioned one other issue earlier: for women who can carry the child to term, but even with all the services can’t or are unwilling to care for the child, we need a dramatically improved foster home and adoption system in this country. Foster homes need to be loving places that take good care of kids, not (as they are in a minority, but still significant number of cases) dens of abuse and neglect. Adoption needs to be a much easier process and the attempts to discriminate against gay and lesbian couples must end immediately. There are millions of families that can’t have kids and want them. There are today millions of women who have unwanted children. They need to be matched up and, when possible, the natural mother should take a role in the child’s life. I have always been a big advocate for adoption because both of my parents are adopted- my father at birth because he was unwanted by his natural mother (who today might have been merely aborted him), though he was wanted deeply by two of the finest people on the face of this planet- my paternal grandparents- and my mother’s father abandoned her family and was adopted by my maternal grandfather. Adoption is a wonderful thing whether you support abortion rights or not, and it is a pressing issue that we must continue improving on.

Finally, we need to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place. The way to do this is to have a serious, open, frank and honest discussion in sexual education in our schools- and only Democrats are talking about this right now. Abstinence should be the starting point- kids who aren’t responsible decision-makers yet shouldn’t be having sex. Still, history since 50,000 BC or so has shown that adolescents will have sex even when it is a very bad idea. Abstinence-only education has been shown to actually increase the likelihood that kids will have sex and dramatically increases the likelihood that they will use no contraception or protection. They tell kids that using condoms doesn’t change anything, and they believe it. We have to start by telling kids that sex is a serious choice- if only because once you start having sex it is nigh impossible to stop. It also complicates relationships, leads to a greater chance of heartbreak and the whole dynamic of having to sneak around parents makes the whole thing rather destructive to families. It’s annoying, it’s addictive and will leave you hurt and alienated from people you really care about. That, of course, is if you don’t get pregnant or a disease- those just make everything even worse. So sex should be avoided, but if they make the decision- the rather unwise decision at the age of 15 or 16- to have sex, they should be intelligent about their contraceptive and disease-prevention options. These options should be made more affordable, more available and more discreet for young people, and everyone else for that matter. Widely and easily available contraception and an honest discussion about sex will help us to avoid many of the unwanted pregnancies in the first place.

Human life is sacred, everyone can agree on that. We as a country have more or less decided that abortion is a right. What we now must do is ask ourselves- as honestly, frankly and unflinchingly as we should discuss sex with our nation’s young people- when life begins. Religion has a place at this table, but common sense and scientific reason have an even more important place in the policy-making of a secular government. If what I have found so far (and my search has not ended yet, nor will it ever likely) is accurate- that life begins at fertilization both by the independent definition of “life” and a scientific understanding of the life cycle- then abortion must end.

Choice is not a valuable argument as no one has the right to choose whether another human lives or dies except when that person poses an immediate threat to one’s own life.

Women’s rights is not a valuable argument in that no one’s rights include the right to kill an innocent human being, not to mention that at least 50% of the lives we are snuffing out are women who will never have a choice on anything.

Political difficulty is not an excuse as the history of our country is the history of oppressed groups taking on monumental difficulties to set themselves free, and in this case we must stand up for those who not only cannot speak for themselves, but are as yet unborn.

Finally, constitutionality is not a valid excuse as it is clear that if these embryos are living humans then Roe v. Wade was a bit of unconstitutional abomination on par with Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson. In the end, if life begins at conception, we have no choice but to protect that life with every element of our law available to us. Democrats must take the lead, as only Democrats can protect life before it is in this world and after it is born. It is time for politics to leave this discussion and for level-headed and honest people to debate the issues with themselves and others in a respectful way.

I invite you to join me in this vital task, and urge you to respond to all of this, respectfully of course.

So, who exactly are all you folks?

By Byron LaMasters

Last year, BlogAds initiated a "2004 Blog Reader Demographic" survey for all users of BlogAds. It came at a busy time for me, and I forgot to urge our readers to participate. This year, however, I hope to see significant participation from BOR readers. The information is useful for potential advertisers, but more importantly, the information is useful for us so that we know who our audience is, so that we can better cater to our readers.

I would very much appreciate it - especially if you are a regular reader of the site - if you would follow this link to tell us more about yourself. The survey should take 5-10 minutes, and just make sure to write "BurntOrangeReport.com" for the answer to question 16. Thanks a lot, and we're looking forward to learning more about our readers.

Blog Reader Demographics 2005 Survey

The Right-hand Sidebar

By Byron LaMasters

The right-hand sidebar underwent a major overhaul over the weekend. I spent several hours deleting broken links and sites/blogs I no longer read, and adding blogs I read on a somewhat regular basis, or believe are beneficial to our readers. I had already updated the Texas blogroll several weeks ago, but I needed to update everything else - the only thing I need to complete is the "about/contact" page which will be completed when I get the information that I need from all of the writers.

Specifically, I've made significant changes to "Daily Reads" and "More Reads". I also created the categories of "GLBT Blogs" and "College Blogs". So scroll down the right-hand side bar and check them out...

Doing a Favor For Jon Mureen

By Andrew Dobbs

With all this talk about SG, I forgot to mention that my one time nemesis Jon Mureen called me the other day. Jon ran for SG President my freshman year and I gladly helped Brian Haley beat him. Jon's a nice enough guy I suppose and we became rather cordial after it all was over. Now he's apparantly at the University of Virginia law school and did a Google Search of himself to see what future employers would find. He claimed that the first thing were some comments some trickster left on BOR claiming to be him saying crazy things. The search didn't turn this up, and someone had removed the posts, probably Byron.

I wanted to put the posts up so everyone could see what Mureen was so worried about, but now I can't. What I CAN do is put up the rather silly email that Jon sent me threatening me to take down the posts. Here you go:

Andrew,

I’m still hoping to resolve this civilly, but judging by your refusal to respond, I can infer that you do not care to. This issue will have to be resolved one way or another, so unless I hear from you within 48 hours, we will commence legal proceedings, and you will receive word from my attorney. At that point, I will leave the rest of the communication to him.

If doing the right thing is not enough motivation for you to remove the pages, you should also know that it is in your best interest to do so. If you refuse, not only will the Burnt Orange Report and its agents be held liable for knowingly publicizing slanderous and false information (and refusing to remove it), but it will also be fairly easy to determine who created the false identity. In addition to his own civil liability, that individual will face criminal charges for identity theft.

Andrew, I hope it doesn’t come to any of this, but please know that I am serious. As a law student, I have the time, resources, and access to quality legal counsel that will allow me to see this through.

Regards,

Jon Mureen

Well Jon, we didn't slander you- if anything we were libelous seeing that libel is written and slander is spoken, but we weren't even doing that. See, we run a website and anyone can put whatever name and write here. We didn't say anything about you, so we couldn't have libeled or slandered you. If I owned a truck stop and someone put on a bathroom wall "For a Good Time, Call Jon Mureen 434-906-04**", could I be sued for insinuating that you would show some lonely trucker a good time? I think not. And this unknown webperson didn't really "steal your identity" so much as s/he portrayed a parody, a satire- protected speech under the First Amendment (I'm sure you'll cover that in law school at some point). So bring your attorneys on, Mr. Mureen.

I don't know what this shows- that Mureen will be a good attorney because he is an uptight prick or a bad attorney because a) his knowledge of the law is feeble at best and b) he is such a weak-willed type that he is worried that a few silly BOR posts will keep a graduate of the University of Texas and UVA law out of a job. Either way, the email was a bit on the silly side.

The posts are down and this suggests to me that there will likely be no reason for me ever to talk to Jon Mureen again, which makes me rather happy. I hold no grudges, I kicked his ass once already and got my jollies then. Hope Mr. Mureen can let it go sooner or later as well.

Open Thread

By Byron LaMasters

I won't be posting until later in the day, but yall are welcome to use this as an open thread, since we haven't done one in awhile. Feel free to talk about the Oscars last night, or about BOR's mention in two daily newspapers today, the Dallas Morning News and the Daily Texan, or whatever else you'd like.

Spreading Firefox

By Byron LaMasters

Karl-Thomas and I were chatting last night while we were working on posts, and we made an observation. While using Internet Explorer, Karl-Thomas noticed that some links on BOR were opening slowly and/or incorrectly. On the other hand, I was using Firefox and had no trouble with the links in question. So, he tried opening the links on Firefox, and I tried opening the links on IE, and sure enough Karl-Thomas had no trouble with the files on Firefox, while I experienced the slowness of opening the files on IE.

I've been using Firefox as my Internet browser almost exclusively since the beginning of the year, and I would highly recommend it to all of our readers. Firefox blocks more spam / pop-up ads than IE, downloading files is more user-friendly with Firefox, and as someone who almost always multitasks while online, I find the tabbing feature of Firefox to be very useful. Finally, I've noticed that many websites - including BOR run faster with Firefox.

I must say that I'm surprised that 30% of BOR readers already use Firefox 1.0. That's quite impressive considering that Firefox 1.0 launched barely three months ago. Already, Firefox has attained nearly a 5% market share. It makes sense that blogs would show Firefox with a larger browser share as blog readers are more tech-savvy than your average Internet user. I think that BOR's focus as a UT-student based political blog gives us a younger audience than others - also increasing our Firefox share. Here's the Firefox Share of some other blogs I read frequently (although these numbers seem to vary by a few points either way each time I reload):

Off the Kuff - 15%
Political Wire - 17%
MyDD - 28%
Daily Kos - 33%

Anyway, I would certainly encourage all of you to get Firefox (it's free) if you haven't yet:

Ok, so this picture DID turn out...

By Byron LaMasters

I mentioned last week how the picture of Karl-Thomas and I in San Antonio didn't exactly turn out, but I just noticed a picture on the University Democrats webpage of us from the February 2nd meeting. I was showing my support for Martin Frost for DNC Chair, vainly attempting to get a wireless connection, and savoring a tasty cookie - completely oblivious to the fact that someone was taking a picture, while Karl-Thomas apparently was going for the punk-ass blogger look. Anyway, here ya go:

Comments Working Again

By Byron LaMasters

Comments are now working again. My apologies for taking so long. It has been a frustrating four days, but everything is working now, so go ahead and start commenting again. If you're interested in the full story for our comment problem, take the jump to the extended entry.

I have to say that in my 20 months of using Dreamhost, this was the first time where I was genuinely perturbed with their service. Apparently, a week ago, Dreamhost made an announcement requesting that MoveableType users upgrade to version 3.15, or otherwise be subject to a stoppage of some services. Unfortunately, since I only received the "Level 5" or "most urgent emails", I don't recall receiving that notification (I've since signed up to receive level 2-5 emails from Dreamhost). Then on Friday, Dreamhost disabled my mt-comments.cgi file, thus disabling all comments. I read through the latest Dreamhost announcements, noticed the request to upgrade to MT 3.15 (I was using MT 3.121), and upgraded. Then, I emailed Dreamhost back asking them to enable my mt-comments.cgi file. Dreamhost usually responds to support requests within 24 hours, but it took them nearly 60 hours to fulfill this request.

They finally responded to my request stating that the comments should be working, so I checked, and the comments still were not working, and I promptly filed out another support request last night. This afternoon, I finally decided to go into my ftp program and look at the properties of the mt-comments.cgi file. Sure enough, the permissions were set at 200, so I changed it to 755, checked to see if the comments worked, and sure enough they did. Overall, I've had a great experience with Dreamhost, but this was quite frustrating. Still, I'd recommend Dreamhost - it's $10/month, their service is generally pretty good, and until our traffic increases by a factor of ten, we won't have to pay any more for additional bandwidth.

Comments

By Byron LaMasters

The comments are down due to a spam attack this morning which caused my hosting service to disable my mt-comments.cgi file. I don't have time to work on this problem this afternoon, so hopefully, I'll be able to take care of it tonight or tomorrow.

Memories of Da 'Burgh

By Jim Dallas

In a strange coincidence, Kos made a slight boo-boo in a post today:

Rep. Bobby Bonilla (R) is eyeing a Senate run if Kay Bailey Hutchinson retires to run for governor, as expected. That would open up a congressional seat that has narrowly elected Bonilla in several past elections.

Meanwhile, the DSCC's and Ed Rendell's top choice to challenge Santorum next year, Bob Casey Jr., met with party leaders in DC to discuss the race. Democrats want Santorum out in the worst way -- the number one target, in fact -- and feel that Casey's popularity in PA will give them the best chance for success.

In my previous post I made a subtle joke about Bobby Bonilla, the retired baseball player. Why? Because Bobby Bo was one of the stars of the Pittsburgh Pirates in the late 1980s (along with Barry Bonds).

I lived in Pittsburgh for a few years, and I was a huge Pirates fan.

Incidentally, during the same time Bob Casey Sr. was governor of Pennsylvania, and I remember him being in the news a lot.

Almost brings a tear to my eye, all these childhood memories.

More Changes

By Byron LaMasters

As I started last week with my Texas blogroll updates, I'm continuing with site updates here at BOR. Since we're a group blog, and especially since we've been expressing our varying viewpoints on the DNC Chair race, I made changes today intended to make it easier for our readers to know whose post they're reading. Instead of having to read or scroll down to the end of each post to figure out which one of us wrote the post, you can now see the author of each post directly under the title of the post. Tell me what you think, and if there are any further changes along these lines that we can make.

Andrew's Comments Earlier today

By Byron LaMasters

I called Andrew earlier this evening and told him that I thought that this post was inappropriate. I timedated it down a few slots, because I felt that it distracted from several other posts this evening. Every writer of this blog is free to express their own opinion, but at times we disagree. I think that Andrew's criticism of Kos and Jerome was a cheap shot and unfair. Andrew's not by a computer at the moment, but he might have some comments later on this evening.

My thoughts on Fowler to be posted tonight

By Byron LaMasters

I just got off the conference call with Donnie Fowler. Overall, I was quite impressed, but I have to run some errands, then it's Big Monday Basketball. Go Horns!

I have about six pages of notes from the conference call, so I'll post my thoughts on Donnie Fowler sometime tonight. For now, again, check out Annatopia.

The Koufax Awards

By Byron LaMasters

Cool. We got nominated for a Koufax award, the premier lefty blog award (no offense to The View From the Left). BOR was nominated for Best Group Blog. Other categories include Best Overall Blog (by a non-professional) and Most Humorous Blog. You are allowed to vote once for each category in the comments section. We would certainly appreciate any votes for BOR in the Best Group Blog category, but there are a number of other well-deserving blogs in that category as well, so vote for your favorite. Vote here.

Update: Wow. Another nomination for Best Single Issue blog (Texas Politics). Lots of well-deserving blogs in that category as well, including several of interest to Texas readers - Off the Kuff, The Daily DeLay and Grits for Breakfast. Vote here.

Color me Amused

By Byron LaMasters

Since last night, traffic at BOR has been about twice our average amount. Why, you ask? Our coverage of the DNC race? News about Jack Stick's contest? Our coverage of the Ohio challenge, Karl-Thomas's Sleepless Winter Tour, or our Koufax Award nomination?

No, no, no. Don't be silly. Our traffic is up because everyone is doing a Google Search on Ashlee Simpson getting booed at the Orange Bowl. Sorry to disappoint, but check out Boi From Troy's take on Ashlee Simpson getting booed and his Orange Bowl recap if you're interested.

A Good Start to 2005

By Byron LaMasters

I got in from Los Angeles tonight, and so far 2005 is going pretty well. Of the Bowl Games I cared about, the teams I supported went 4-0. The Longhorns won and the Red Raiders beat Cal big time giving the Longtorns vindication for their Rose Bowl birth in the first place. Finally, the hated Aggies and Sooners both got embarrassed, which is always a pleasure to see as a Longhorn fan.

I can't even complain too much politically so far. President Bush got shamed into vastly increasing our tsunami relief funds, and House Republicans have dropped their bid to loosen House ethics rules. So far, so good. I'll get back to regular posting tomorrow.

How I spent my New Year's

By Nathan Nance

Guest post by Nate Nance

Something interesting happened to me tonight that I have to share because I think I'm supposed to.

After chauffering a drunk friend around town as the designated driver while listening to her problems, and listening to an alcoholic talk about his relapse on New Year's Eve, I stopped at a convenience store to get a soda so that I could go home and finally have a drink for myself.

As I was walking out the door, a lady asked me to come over and talk to her. At 5 in the morning, people don't want to talk about good things and I almost had had my fill of listening to people's problems. But I did. It wasn't an unusual story. Two homeless women sitting at bus stop begging for change so that they could get something to eat and maybe a cheap motel room so they could have a bath and warm place to sleep. I didn't have any cash but I had plenty of change and some leftovers that Suzanne had left in the car when I took her home.

After the tsunami hit the Indian Ocean beaches and the death toll began to climb, it became a bit surreal. I mean, 150,000 dead people because of an earthquake and some water, it's really beyond the human imagination to comprehend just how much suffering that entails. The numbers are just too big. But one person at a bus stop begging from the bottom of her heart for some help, that's impossible to ignore.

It is so easy to get lost in politics. It's so easy to just get wrapped up in the day to day fighting over things and to forget why you're fighting. I think I'm a religious man, and I'd like to think God took the time to remind me why I'm a liberal Democrat. I believe that government is fundamentally a force of good in people's lives. Great things can be accomplished when all the resources of our republic are put behind something; we know because we've done it before. Conservatives feel that it is the individual's responsibility to do great things. But I ask you, what is a government but the representation of all the individuals that make up the citizenry?

We may never be able to help all the homeless people. We may never be able to feed and shelter them all. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. And we shouldn't forget why we fight the good fight. We shouldn't forget why we are here.

I'll wake up tomorrow a little more eager to fight and help those who can't help themselves. And the next day I'll be more eager still. I will challenge myself to be more eager to help all the helpless people . I hope we all do the same. Great things can be accomplished; we know because we've done it before.

This is a gust post from Nathan Nance. He can be reached at nate_nance@yahoo.com.

Happy New Year!

By Nathan Nance

Guest post by Nate Nance

I know it is still a few hours until it is actually New Year's Day in North America, but I'm going to be out celebrating so I had better do it now. I've already been to one New Year's Eve Eve party honoring the birthday of Dick Clark, his 251st. I swear to God, the lower left-hand corner of the Declaration of Independence reads "Dick Clark, Keep on rockin'".

I've been unusually busy the past week with high school basketball tournaments, so my posting was not up to par, but with the holiday season finally behind us I'll be able to cover a few things that I may have skipped over recently that deserve some scrutiny.

With all that said, have a safe and happy New Year's, and be sure to drink responsibly. I wouldn't want any of you to miss Texas kick the shiznite out of Michigan tomorrow.

This is a guest post from Nathan Nance. He can be reached at nate_nance@yahoo.com.

Merry Christmas from Our Family

By Byron LaMasters

In my 22 years of celebrating Christmas in Texas, this year was the first where there was actually snow on the ground on Christmas Day. Needless to say, the situation called for a family picture. So, without further adu, please accept this as our Christmas greetings to you and your family.

Byron, Janet and David LaMasters, 12/25/2004 (Click on image for enlarged copy).

Online Quizes were SOOO 2003, but....

By Byron LaMasters

I found this one interesting via Greg and Stout Dem:

You Are a New School Democrat

You like partying and politics - and are likely to be young and affluent. You're less religious, traditional, and uptight than most Democrats. Smoking pot, homosexuality, and gambling are all okay in your book. You prefer that the government help people take care of themselves.

These things are gross oversimplifications, but it's close enough.