Dan Wood: The Eponymous Weblog

By now most people watching politics have heard of Richard Pombo, the guy representing the California district bordering the San Francisco Bay Area and overlapping part of Silicon Valley. He's one of the worst members of Congress, tied to the DeLay and Abramoff scandals; his personal mission which he's managed to push through the House (and is now up in the Senate) is the dismantling of the Endangered Species Act, which has managed to save the animals like the Bald Eagle and Yellowstone Grizzly Bear from extinction.

Last election cycle, the Democratic Party establishment didn't even bother to proffer a challenger, so Jerry McNerney (I've blogged about him before) got himself onto the ballot as a write-in candidate, and ran a respectable race against Pombo powered solely by the grassroots since the Demos didn't bother to give him any support.

Well, he's running again, and this time, the stakes are enormous. Getting Pombo out of Congress should be a priority for everybody in the country. We all live in Richard Pombo's District. This time, though, the Democratic establishment who ignored the district last time is financially backing another guy, a middle-of-the-road "Republican Lite" candidate, ignoring the huge grassroots support and name recognition that McNerney has managed to get since he started the race last year.

Anybody will be better than Pombo, but I believe that McNerney is the stronger candidate. I've been helping the campaign as I can, managing Jerry's weblog primarily.

I'm blogging about this because I'm trying to help the campaign raise some critical funds before the end-of-the-month campaign finance deadline of Friday Midnight. If you can help out with a donation of any amount, it will make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. And it will make me happy too! :-) Naturally you contribute online. Let me know if you did! Thanks!

I stumbled upon this fascinating article in the LA Times (registration probably required, see BugMeNot) about the legislative process in the House of Representatives these days. It discusses the way legislation is supposed to work, and how it really does work in today's Congress.

Chilling. (Unless you're a Republican, of course.)

Last year's SXSW festival (which I still can't figure out — it seems to be so many different events crammed into the same name) had a great online goodie for people who weren't there — a sampling of hundreds of songs from the bands that are playing at the festival. I slogged through lots of music last year and found some real gems, some bands that I've gotten to really enjoy. Some of them, I've even since heard on the radio.

This year they have a bunch more here, available as a torrent. If you like to discover new, interesting music, check it out. (There are also over 100 trailers for films they are showing there, though that's not something that I can really do "in the background" like listening to music!)