Offering frequent news and analysis from the majestic Evergreen State and beyond, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's unconventional perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Blogworthy, October 9th, 2007

Here's the latest edition of our occasional review feature touching on news and developments that we couldn't get around to writing about earlier, as well as items we have accidentally overlooked.

Track athlete Marion Jones' career ended disastrously this week when the 31 year old athlete admitted to using BALCO steroids before and during competition in the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia. Jones has surrendered the five medals she won in Sydney to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which intends to return them to the International Olympics Committee.

Jones has also agreed to "forfeit all other results dating back to Sept. 1, 2000" according to the Associated Press, which also reports that the IOC is "prepared to wipe her name officially from the record books, strip her of her world championship medals, pursue her for prize money and appearance fees and possibly ban her from future Olympics in any capacity."

MSNBC, the cable network and web venture between General Electric and Microsoft, announced on Sunday night that is acquiring Newsvine, one of the more prominent community-driven news and technology portals on the Web (perhaps the most famous and well trafficked of these is Digg). Newsvine will remain autonomous, but will share information and software with its new parent company, according to executives from Newsvine and MSNBC, who had been discussing a deal for several months.

There has been some rumor and speculation that the Federal Communications Commission will soon schedule its final public hearing on changes to media ownership rules in Seattle. (The fifth and most recent public hearing on the new rules was held in Chicago, Illinois on Thursday, September 20th, 2007).

Two FCC commissioners (Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein) have previously held hearings in Seattle on their own - without the other commissioners - but those weren't official, and the testimony received fell on sympathetic ears. (I liveblogged one of these unofficial hearings last year).

If the FCC were to hold an official hearing with all five commissioners present, it would be an extremely significant event - an opportunity to impress upon the majority that controls the FCC that Americans of all different political worldviews are opposed to the consolidation and concentration of media ownership. The commission hasn't made an announcement yet, but it likely will soon.

Frederick of Hollywood's campaign for President of the United States (if you can call it a campaign) has continued its plunge towards irrelevancy with his failure to excite or interest voters in Iowa. At a restaurant there, Thompson actually had to beg for applause in the silence following the end of his impromptu speech "about some things". Thompson was a bystander in tonight's GOP debate, which was dominated by rivals Mitt Romney and Rudy Guiliani.

New Mexcio's 2008 U.S. Senate race is getting more interesting by the day following the decision by incumbent Republican Pete Dominici to retire. Representative Heather Wilson (R-NM-01), who narrowly escaped defeat in last year's midterm elections, is already running, and Representative Steve Pearce (R-NM-02) is contemplating getting in as well, which would result in a primary on the GOP side while opening up two House seats for Democrats to target.

The mayor of Albuquerque, Martin Chavez, announced his intention to run today as a Democrat during a midday press conference. Don Wiviott, developer of several live-work unit projects in Sante Fe, is also running, having loaned himself nearly half a million dollars in startup cash. Meanwhile, the DSCC is reportedly pushing Lieutenant Governor Diane Denish (a progressive with statewide name ID) to get into the race. This one will be fun to watch.

The Simple Majority for our Schools campaign to approve EHJR 4204, the constitutional amendment to remove the antiquated supermajority requirement for school levies, has just launched a new television ad to explain to voters why 4204 is fair, reasonable, and necessary. The ad can be viewed on YouTube.

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