Franken update

Rasmussen, a pretty shitty polling organization by most accounts, just released these MN Sen 08 numbers. Things not looking that good for ole Al. Losing in the trial heat (or "horse-race") by 10 points (46% to 36%, with an additional 10% saying they'd vote for a third party).

As correctly Rasmussen notes:

Generally speaking, incumbents who poll below 50% are considered potentially vulnerable.

True. However, Franken's favorables don't look too good right now: 39% favorable and 46% unfavorable. I am impressed that 85% of the survey had an opinion of Franken this far out actually, and would be interested in seeing the question ordering on the survey. If they ask the feelings thermometer after the trial heat, where they name the candidates, they bias the results because they give respondents that name and party identification of the candidate, something they might not have known before hearing the trial heat. Anyways, I am not suggesting Rasmussen did this, it just seems odd to me that 18 months away from an election 85% of those polled have formed an opinion on a challenger already. Then again, this is a guy who has been in the public eye for over 20 years now, so maybe it is a special case.

Domestique still withholds judgement on Franken as a candidate, although there is no question Norm fears him already. Check this out. It is a Star Tribune Big Question [politics blog] post about an intercepted fundraising letter sent out from Coleman's camp. I am going to copy and paste the passage from the letter that the Big Question posted, I'd do the whole thing if I had it, but perhaps unsurprisingly I do not receive too many GOP fundraising letters/emails (thank goodness). I'll just put this up and leave the analysis to the BQ blogger Eric Black, because I have nothing to add to his take, and if I just reiterate what he says in my own language, i think that is blog-plagiarism or something...

“Let’s talk politics for a moment because it’s as clear as a bell that I’m the National Democrats’ top target, comedian Al Franken is their likely nominee and with the Senate poised at a 51-49 majority, our success on Election Day is the key to Republicans reclaiming control in 2008.

Comic Franken is rich, glib, famous and nationally-connected. I take him very seriously.

He practices the cynical politics of hate that is petty, bitter, divisive, mean, vicious and cruel. While he lectures us on the conservatism he despises, he embraces an ultra-liberal philosophy that inevitably results in a pandemic of spending, taxing, borrowing and Big Government micromanaging.

Liberalism kills the goose that lays the golden eggs.

But Franken and other DFLers are considering running, too because they figure:

• Minnesota is a very liberal state.
• Amy Klobuchar won a landslide over Mark Kennedy.
• They think they can snap their fingers and defeat me in 2008.

Again, I think they’re missing the point and extracting the wrong lesson for the last election.

I think they’ve dismissed power of our conservative ideals and forgotten that I’ve been tested in close elections before.l They’re failing to recall the strength and intensity of our 87-county grassroots organization.

And most of all… They’re forgetting about good Minnesotans like you…

Bzzzzzz (a.k.a. F**k Monsanto)

Hear that buzzing of busy little bees pollinating the great fields of America? No? Oh, that's because all over the country, entire colonies of bees are dying off en masse. This is a huge problem for our food supply. Turns out, even that extra fancy genetically modified test-tube industrial agricultural corn needs good ole fashioned pollination (i.e., everything needs to get laid sometimes), and bees are the key to this.

Entire colonies of bees are turning up dead or missing in what has been termed Colony Collapse Disorder. No one knows what is going on with the bees or what might be causing this problem. This Pennsylvania bee keeper, John McDonald, offers his hypothesis in this article from the San Francisco Chronicle, in which he lays out the theory that it is the genetically modified crops themselves that are causing the bees to die.

Here is his explanation, and surprise, surprise, agri-business is to blame (Monsanto and Cargill being the main culprits here):

The most commonly transplanted segment of transgenic DNA involves genes from a well-known bacterium, bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), which has been used for decades by farmers and gardeners to control butterflies that damage cole crops such as cabbage and broccoli. Instead of the bacterial solution being sprayed on the plant, where it is eaten by the target insect, the genes that contain the insecticidal traits are incorporated into the genome of the farm crop. As the transformed plant grows, these Bt genes are replicated along with the plant genes so that each cell contains its own poison pill that kills the target insect.

In the case of field corn, these insects are stem- and root-borers, lepidopterans (butterflies) that, in their larval stage, dine on some region of the corn plant, ingesting the bacterial gene, which eventually causes a crystallization effect in the guts of the borer larvae, thus killing them.

He links this back to bees by saying that many bee keepers have long used a spray version of Bt to help prevent moth infestations in their honeycomb, and lately there have been growing reports of bee keepers not needing the spray. That is, the honeycomb has become resistant on its own. This would signify that something about the bees has changed, and that is probably the presence of Bt in the bees. He theorizes that Bt may be doing other unknown things to the bees, perhaps immuno-suppression for example, that is resulting in CCD.

Just one more example of why we should shun agribusiness at every turn, folks. It has proven to be bad for the environment, bad for the food and those of us who eat it, bad for small farmers and rural America, and bad for bees. Genetically modified foods are creepy, and there is a very good reason why Europeans don't consume them as a general rule (which is, they are creepy and the long term effects of consumption on both humans and the environment are unknown). Luckily for us here in 'Mer'ca, our noble protectors at the FDA are not food experts but political appointees, and have since dubbed not only GM foods as safe, but also, recently, cloned food. See, isn't Democracy wonderful? All you need is a multi-billion dollar mult-national agribusiness firm and some well placed campaign contributions and you too can have a say in your country's public health policy!! Yep, Dolly the lamb may soon appear on your dinner plate at your local Applebees as a delicious roasted chop with a side of GM corn and mashed GM potatoes! Yummm! And ya know what? Maybe for my pals back in Minnesota, this is a good thing. Think about it, eat enough GM insect resistant food and maybe those damn misquitos will stop biting you all summer long!