iowa underground blog http://iowaunderground.com/blog spelunking the interweb since late 2005 Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:01:21 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en 2008 Presidential Poltics…. and more Iowa Underground is active discussing nearly everything under the sun on the forums. ]]> http://iowaunderground.com/blog/2008/06/18/2008-presidential-poltics-and-more/ Next President @ University of Iowa? There’s discussion on who will be the next president of the University of Iowa on the forums today. TH privied us to a discussion being broadcast over WSUI. Sousy chimes in with the following distillation: I’m listening off and on. The things I’m gathering: 1) The U of I community is not happy.

2) There seems to be [...]

]]> http://iowaunderground.com/blog/2006/11/20/next-president-university-of-iowa/ Loebsack and Leach, sitting in a tree… K-I-S-S-I-N-G ...or so the L.A. Times would have us believe. Okay, so they’re not really kissing. Truth be told, how these two men have conducted their campaigns is a somewhat refreshing show of adulthood and civility, especially so considering what we’ve seen coming out of the fear-and-smear GOP for the past several years. I’ve [...] ]]> http://iowaunderground.com/blog/2006/11/04/loebsack-and-leach-sitting-in-a-tree/ Make Your Own Campaign Videos What with the popularity of you-tube, disseminating your own self-styled campaign spots has never been easier, and with the advent an open-source application by the name of CamStudio – actually making the videos has perhaps never been simpler. The folllowing ad was pieced together simply by opening a few files up in photoshop – [...] ]]> http://iowaunderground.com/blog/2006/10/05/make-your-own-campaign-videos/ Moyers On America: Capitol Crimes From the transcript: BILL MOYERS: But if reform has to come from the people who are benefiting from the system, are we going to get reform? NORMAN ORNSTEIN: We’re going to get reform if and when they believe that the public will have the tar cooking and the feathers waiting if they don’t do reform. We’re not [...] ]]> http://iowaunderground.com/blog/2006/10/05/moyers-on-america-capitol-crimes/ The Ultimate Agricultural Efficiency With a ‘thanks’ once again to A.V. Krebs comes this opinion piece from the New York Times: THE ULTIMATE AGRICULTURAL EFFICIENCY

Editorial New York Times September 23, 2006

Any American history of pork—- the meat, that is—- shows a steady concentration of more and more hogs in the hands of fewer and fewer [...]
]]> http://iowaunderground.com/blog/2006/10/03/the-ultimate-agricultural-efficiency/ E. Coli And The Centralization of the Food Industry The San Francisco Chronicle ran an article detailing the issues that mass food production has caused – in this case, the easy spread of a single E. Coli outbreak from a local contamination to a national outbreak: TECHNOLOGY, EATING HABITS HELP TO SPREAD E. COLI

By Erin Allday San Francisco Chronicle September 23, [...]

]]> http://iowaunderground.com/blog/2006/09/28/e-coli-and-the-centralization-of-the-food-industry/ DSM Register: beneath contempt Okay, so I open my Sunday NY Times and find this piece of actual reporting: Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat

A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall [...]

]]> http://iowaunderground.com/blog/2006/09/25/dsm-register-beneath-contempt/ The American Media: In Pictures Thanks to Rising Hegemon (Hi, Scooter!) – is a good example of what’s wrong with the American media. Which of these things is not like the other? Sousy ]]> http://iowaunderground.com/blog/2006/09/25/the-american-media-in-pictures/ Filpside of Illegal Immigration, Part II Via Confined Space is an example of why companies fight hard to continue hiring illegal employees – and lobbying to avoid responsibility for doing so. He broke a rib and injured a kidney, and his right lung collapsed. He also hit his head on the floor, severely injuring his brain’s frontal lobe, which controls language, memory [...] ]]> http://iowaunderground.com/blog/2006/09/22/filpside-of-illegal-immigration-part-ii/ Iowa GOP Forces Own Candidate Out Of Party It seems that the Iowa GOP leaders in Des Moines decided to “help” with a campaign in southern Iowa – in a way so disgusting that it forced their canddiate to drop out of the party and declare himself to be an Independent. Kevin Wiskus, a candidate for Iowa House District 94, has switched his party [...] ]]> http://iowaunderground.com/blog/2006/09/19/iowa-gop-forces-own-candidate-out-of-party/ Jeff Lamberti On The Issues .... or at least, copying them from the political consultants back pocket. The answers were so good, Republican candidates wanted to use them as their own. The embarrassment was at least seven did. Republicans in House races copied their party’s talking points and included parts of the answers as their own for an AARP survey. The answers [...] ]]> http://iowaunderground.com/blog/2006/09/05/jeff-lamberti-on-the-issues/ James Van Allen Passes At Age 91 From the University of Iowa News Service: IOWA CITY, Iowa—Dr. James A. Van Allen, U.S. space pioneer and Regent Distinguished Professor of Physics in the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, died this morning, Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2006 at the age of 91. Arrangements are pending. Though he retired from active teaching in 1985, [...] ]]> http://iowaunderground.com/blog/2006/08/09/james-van-allen-passes-at-age-91/ Taking Property - Without Seizure. Now that the dust has settled on the eminent domain legislation (for now) – another related issue has come to a head in Clear Lake. State lawmakers can brag all they want about how they protected Iowans from shopping malls, airports and lakes. But when it comes to the property rights fight over hogs, they [...] ]]> http://iowaunderground.com/blog/2006/07/18/taking-property-wiithout-siezure/ C.R. Gazette Drops Coulter Three cheers for the Cedar Rapids Gazette. It would appear she of the prodigious adam’s apple has reached a tipping point in her career – and is finally pissing off and offending those to the right of the political spectrum. It’s not quite ‘ding dong, the witch is dead’ yet, but it’s atleast a [...] ]]> http://iowaunderground.com/blog/2006/07/13/cr-gazette-drops-coulter/