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Howdy everybody. Jessica and I spent our Easter weekend in Yosemite National Park, just a few hours east of here. We hiked to the top of Yosemite falls, took some pictures with Jessie’s medium format camera, and came back down.

It was a great weekend, and now that we’re back and I’m just getting around to putting the pictures from that up, we’re off to Camp Wellstone at USC for the remainder of the week and next weekend. So, no podcasts this week, but I’ll have some whoppers next week with news and events and goings on.

For now, here are a few pictures from the hike, and I’ll try to get the medium format shots up when we get them back.

It’s the Thursday podcast, which today covers Jessica going to Europe to study this summer, John Edwards podcast, me on BuzzWebster,
and more.

Be sure to call in with comments at 206-20-CHACON

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chacon, conversation, podcast, campaign, politics, political podcast

From a recent article in the Sacramento Bee entitled Pombo lashed on mailings :

Rep. Richard Pombo, the Tracy Republican who heads the House Resources Committee, was taken to task Wednesday for sending out committee mailings last fall that critics contend were intended to influence the presidential elections in a key battleground state.

The charges came during a House Administration Committee hearing on the 2005-06 budget Pombo submitted for his committee, including another $100,000 for mass mailings over the next two years.

There’s some well spent taxpayer money. Yet another reason why I am running.

By the way, if you want to read these articles without signing up for every newspaper that has a required registration, try out the Firefox plugin called BugMeNot.

On today’s podcast : Terry Schiavo, Laurent S.D., and Micro-Goals!

I am launching my Micro-Goals fundraisers, so please donate to help me go to the Personal Democracy Forum.

Comment line: 206-20-CHACON

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I just saw this again, and wanted to point it out. This is on the Vote Smart page for our current representative, Richard Pombo :

REPRESENTATIVE RICHARD W. POMBO REPEATEDLY REFUSED TO PROVIDE ANY RESPONSES TO CITIZENS ON ISSUES THROUGH THE 2004 NATIONAL POLITICAL AWARENESS TEST

REPRESENTATIVE RICHARD W. POMBO REFUSED TO PROVIDE THIS INFORMATION WHEN ASKED TO DO SO BY:

Major News Organizations

and key national leaders of both parties including,

John McCain, Republican Senator
Geraldine Ferraro, Former Democratic Congresswoman
Michael Dukakis, Former Democratic Governor
Bill Frenzel, Former Republican Congressman
Richard Kimball, Project Vote Smart President

I think you should know how your representative stands on the issues. The National Political Awareness Test (NPAT) was taken by hundreds of other candidates and representatives, and I will put up my responses to the questions in it here on my site in the next few months.

John McCain doesn’t even have to ask.

I wanted to copy the comments I made on the Political Dogfight post of the passing of Chris LeDoux here:

“That’s terrible to hear. I had no idea that Chris had died. My wife and I have been Chris LeDoux fans for many years, in fact one of our first dates was at a Chris LeDoux concert at the Ventura Fairgrounds – every time I hear ‘County Fair’, I think of that. We saw him in concert the week before we got married, and his “Two in a Million” was our wedding song.

(our first dance to ‘Two in a Million’)

Every time I hear “Western Skies”, I am reminded of our honeymoon in Montana, and “Song of Wyoming” brings up images of our vacation backpacking in the Tetons. His music is the spirit of the American West to me, and I am incredibly sorry to hear of his passing.
I’ve been to many of the concerts he did here in California, from one in Moorpark all the way up to a few Mid-State fairs when he played on the free stages. I remember when his drummer took off for a while and his kid filled in for a few months, and then his drummer came back and they had two drums going at the same time on stage. I even remember when he had that surgery and then started touring again, but he had to stop riding the bull at the end of his show. I remember him saying how long he’d been married to his wife, and how much he still loved her after all these years, before singing “Gravitaional Pull” every time.

I remember his energy, his enthusiasm and his wonderful music. In the current pop country music world of the likes of Rascal Flatts and “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy”, Chris’s music always reminds me why I liked country music to begin with. It is about cowboys, rodeo, friendship, love and freedom. I guess I’ll just put on “Melodies and Memories” from my old box set and say a little ‘goodbye’ to a real American artist.”

Dogfight’s Stuart O’Neill says it best – “It’s a hell of a bad day…”.

The 15th podcast of mine covers drilling in Alaska, Congresspeople who blog, Yahoo 360, getting a P.O. Box, and a tribute to the life and music of Chris Ledoux, who recently passed away.

Comment line: 206-20-CHACON

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The Personal Democracy Forum blog, which is associated to the conference I have been talking about that is happening in May, has posted a few entries discussing politicians who blog. I commented on one of the threads, and now my name was mentioned in the most recent post.

From the entry :

Molly Chapman Norton’s recent article about Members of Congress and blogging has an interesting thread going, including Molly’s discovery of a list maintained by the National Conference of State Legislators of state reps who blog, and word from one 2006 congressional candidate, Scott Chacon, who is blogging, podcasting many of his posts, and running with a voluntary limit of $100 a contributor (could Joe Trippi be advising him?).

I would highly recommend this site – the features and blog sections are both excellent, and I am really looking forward to the conference. I should probably sign up soon. Stupid money.

Jon Garfunkel then comments on me :

Well, as you noted, the $100 challenge is nothing new. But an 18-month, online-brewed campaign for Congress, that could be the start of a trend.

I have trouble finding out much about Scott on his site though… that picture on the right is not of him.

For one, I just put up some more content, including a page about me. Second, let’s hope a trend starts.

By the way, Trippi is not advising me, but that is where I got the idea.

This was recorded Monday morning, but I think the sound levels are a bit low, and the website was down all morning, so I wasn’t able to get the file uploaded. On this show we discuss Ruby on Rails, Working to Contract, Democracy in the Middle East, and several campaign ideas.

Here it is, Podcast Number 14.

Comment line: 206-20-CHACON

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chacon, conversation, podcast, campaign, politics, political podcast