Please note that the site will be going through some upgrades over the next few hours, so please bear with us as we make some improvements to YPP. Also, please add a comment on this post if you experience any problems.

Tonight I'm excited to welcome my long-time friend, co-blogger, and political ally Michael Connery to Philadelphia. Mike, who founded Music for America and who blogs at Future Majority, where I also blog at times, will be at Robbins Bookstore from 6-7 talking about his new book Youth to Power: How Today's Young Voters Are Building Tomorrow's Progressive Majority. If you can't get the basic idea from the title, here's a description from Amazon:

Apropos of the whole controversy surrounding Obama's relationship to his pastor, I'd like to invite all of you to an event being held next week on The Role of Religion in Politics. Please click "Read More" to find the invite in both text and image formats. If you plan on attending please RSVP asap.

Earlier this week, while flying back to Philly from Ecuador, I happened upon an article in Newsweek that made me want to force the plane turn the plane around and land in another city. The article, which would probably seem innocuous to most, was in an international copy of Newsweek, and it took a look at the huge export market of recyclables and other junk to China:

Scrap materials are the alpha and the omega of the industrial process. Consumers create scrap when they use goods; factories consume it to create new goods. As China has industrialized, its demand for such materials has soared. According to Stan Lancey, chief economist at the American Forest & Paper Association, U.S. exports of recovered paper to China—where paper was invented around 100 B.C.— soared from 348,000 metric tons in 1994 to nearly 9.1 million metric tons in 2006, worth $1.07 billion. This year, China has bought 58 percent of U.S. scrap-paper exports. Meanwhile, exports of ferrous scrap (it sounds like a Scottish breakfast but means waste iron and steel) rose from 166,000 metric tons in 1998 to 2 million metric tons last year. Junk dealers reaped $1.5 billion selling scrap copper to China in 2006. All told, China's ravenous factories hoovered up 42 percent of U.S. scrap exports in 2006.

So why does this piss me off so much? How about the fact that Philadelphia basically doesn't recycle at all. Not only is Philadelphia not cashing in on this global trend, we are all paying to pollute when people would pay us to conserve.

The market has gotten so hot for junk, that this week, New York City Council passed a bill that severely fines people who "steal" recyclable materials that people and businesses put on the curb. (Apparently though these "thieves" wouldn't touch discarded Mets memorabilia- even the Chinese are smart enough not to buy that crap)

The City Council unanimously passed a bill yesterday that would sharply increase fines for people who steal recyclable material from curbsides — to $2,000 from $100 for a first offense, and $5,000 for each subsequent offense within a year.

Officials say the bill is aimed at organized enterprises that use vehicles, which would be impounded under the new law, adding that the $100 fine had not been large enough to prevent these thefts. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is expected to sign the bill, according to an administration spokesman.

Sanitation officials estimated the city might be losing as much as 15,000 tons of paper a year from Manhattan alone. Based on the city’s current recycling contract, which pays $10 to $30 a ton, that means an annual loss of $150,000 to $300,000.
...

“Our recyclable waste that used to be thought of as worthless is getting so valuable that people now see an economic advantage to stealing it,” said Eric A. Goldstein, a senior lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group that helped prepare the city’s original recycling law in 1989. “What this sensible legislation does is create a mechanism that would get at the problem of rustlers of recyclables.”

I'm sure that this is just one example of how the city squanders its many resources, but it's a particularly annoying one. The next time you want to know where we could get money for a robust violence reduction program, for more affordable housing, for better schools, etc. look no further than your filled-with-valuable-recyclables garbage can. I cannot think of a single, solitary, sane answer to the question of why we are paying to throw away stuff that other people would pay us for, other than maybe the crooked-nosed "trash lobby" is exerting some sort of pressure on Council and the Mayor not to act, or these folks are dumber than we all suspected. Can anyone give me one reason, it doesn't even have to be a good one, why the city isn't selling it's trash to the highest bidder?

As I'm sure most of you know, Gen Patraeus gave his assessment of the War in Iraq to Congress today. And while the General seems to be saying that we have "turned the corner" in Iraq, most Americans want to reduce our troop levels or get out of Iraq now. With these very important debates occuring, there couldn't better time for the, Win Without War event, "Exiting Iraq: Military Experts Speak Out". The event is tonight at 7pm on Penn's campus, the full details are below the fold.

This is just a little public service announcement. Tonight we will again be switching servers, and so you may experience some downtime with YPP. Last week PHP four, the dynamic language that is one of the pillars that Drupal stands upon, was officially declared "dead". While we could have waited for a few weeks or months to upgrade, I decided just to get it over with now, since I have a bit of time to troubleshoot this week and will be out of the country for two weeks in September. I haven't heard of any problems with sites once they make the jump from PHP 4 to 5, but there may be some. If you experience any, please shoot me an e-mail.

One things I am certain will happen is that some people will get redirected to the old server after the ips are switched. Please try repairing your network connection if this happens, and if you're missing any content after the move, again, shoot me an e-mail.

Thanks!

update If you are reading this message than you are now looking at YPP on its new and improved server. If you're not reading this message, than we didn't want you here anyway. Just kidding, but that did go much smoother than I thought it would.

Tonight I am taking part in a PhIMA panel discussion titled Election '08: Can the internet influence voters enough to determine the election? Here are the details:

The internet has established itself as a credible medium for mobilizing activists and raising money, but is this just a soap box for preaching to the choir?
The election of 2008 may well be decided by whether a candidate can engage the Web's younger demographic (traditionally apathetic to politics) and drive significant numbers to the polls.
Join NBC's Steve Highsmith and a Blue Ribbon panel as we explore and deconstruct the role that online has played in the past, as well as industry predictions for the internet's impact on the 2008 vote.

Panelists include:
J.J. Balaban - Political Consultant, The Campaign Group
Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg - Blogger, Political Activist
Brian Donlen - Web Consultant
Joe Weinlick - Chief Brand Strategist, VP, Brownstein Group
Jonathan Karush - President and Founder, Liberty Concepts

When: Thursday, August 9th from 6pm to 8pm, FREE admission! Refreshments will be served.
Location: The Independence Visitor Center, ballroom and terrace 6th and Market Streets, Philadelphia, PA

It should be a great discussion, though the framing seems a bit off to me. I'm not sure what role "online" can play (is it a medium? a state of being? a set of interactions?), and the internet affects people and society on so many levels, it seems like the discussion could go all over the place.

But anyway, it should be a great discussion, and I hope to see you there!

Since I know he won't say anything himself, I just wanted to give a quick shout out to Dan, who made the United States Rowing team this weekend with his victory in the lightweight men's quadruple sculls. All of that starving and not drinking wasn't for naught!

Let's here it for Philly, and YPP, representing the US!

For the next few days I'll be in Chicago attending the Second Annual Yearly Kos Convention. Last year I had a great time at the convention, but I didn't really get to sit in on many panels or blog much, as I was there on behalf of the Iraq War documentary The War Tapes. This year I'm working for myself, and so while I be spending some time networking to try and sell my "wares" (web/Drupal development and tech/outreach consulting), but mostly I'll be trying to sit in on as many panels as I can and blog about the convention here and on Future Majority.

Currently, I'm sitting in on the "Connecting Major Donors the the Netroots", featuring Rob Stein, Chris Bowers, Lisa Seitz Gruwell, Mike Lux, and Dave Johnson (pictured). Rob Stein is giving his famous presentation on Right Wing infrastructure, to which he recently added a piece on the growth of right-wing internet assets. The presentation definitely lived up to the hype, and it really is incredible how many resources right-wing activists and movement players have at their disposal.

Anyway, I have to get back to enjoying the conference. I'll put updates below the fold as the day goes on.

Just a quick note that tonight is the Philadelphia Area Draft Gore Meetup! If you're around the city and have a few moments, stop by Nodding Head at 7PM and get to know some fellow local Gore supporters!

When?
Thursday, Jul 19, 2007, 7:00 PM 20070719T230000Z
Where?
The Nodding Head
1516 Sansom St.
Philadelphia, PA 19102
Info/Map

I was absolutely shocked when I noticed that Tom DeLay was coming to the tax-payer funded National Constitution Center to promote his new book Being Evil for Dummies No Retreat, No Surrender. I mean, check out the event description on the Constitution Center's site:

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was one of the most powerful Congressional figures since Lyndon B. Johnson. For the first time, Tom DeLay will visit the National Constitution Center to discuss his new memoir, No Retreat, No Surrender, offering us a look at how politics is really played at the highest levels. Ramesh Ponnuru, a senior editor at the National Review, moderates the conversation.

Known in the media as “The Hammer,” Tom DeLay emerged from an unusually turbulent childhood that included some years living in Venezuela, through the Texas legislature, to represent the Houston suburbs in the U.S. Congress. Following the historic Republican Party victory in 1994, DeLay was elected House Majority Whip by his colleagues. Recognized for his exceptional political acumen, DeLay managed to win votes in the House that others initially thought were lost. DeLay served as an adept House Majority Leader before his abrupt resignation in 2006. In addition to publishing No Retreat, No Surrender, Mr. DeLay launched the Coalition for a Conservative Majority and maintains a popular blog.

Forget for the moment that Mr. Delay's "exceptional political acumen" included things like money laundering and getting bribed to exempt a U.S. Commonwealth from crazy liberal working standards, like protecting female workers from being forced to have abortions, or paying people for work (slavery is definitely a lot kinder to the bottom line). Never mind that Delay's "adept" term as House Majority Leader included taking the lead on such family value items as keeping Internet Gambling legal and purging D.C. of Democrats. Leave aside the possibility that DeLay has never read the Constitution. Did you know that Tom DeLay was a blogger? And that his blog was popular?

There's no word on the site about whether Delay's ghost writer will make an appearance, but I am glad to see that see that this event is being moderated by that raging liberal Ramesh Ponnuru. I'm sure it will be a fair and balanced presentation about how Democrats want to recruit you to be gay, force women to have abortions, and make America into a French-speaking Islamo-Fascist state. Should be a great time!

If anyone goes, can you ask Mr. Delay how that Conservative Majority is doing?

In case you missed this, last weekend the PA Young Democrats elected a new Executive Committee, and I think you'll recognize at least one of the new leaders:

The Pennsylvania Young Democrats announce the election of a new Executive Committee headed by two of the commonwealth’s brightest rising stars.

“We are honored to have attracted leaders like Tony and Chelsa to guide our organization into 2008. Their enthusiasm to serve as our chief officers confirms our past record of accomplishment and strengthens our reputation as Pennsylvania's premiere political organization for youth,” said Paul McKrell, PAYD Executive Director.

Congrats to Tony and the other newly elected leadership!

The Young Dems aren't always seen as the most active or innovative group in this state (or the nation, for that matter), but they have infrastructure and connections to the "older" members of the state party that could be very useful to other youth-focused political groups, or groups led by young people. My hope is that Tony and Chelsea can change that perception in the lead up to the next round of state and federal elections, and turn the PA Young Dems into the useful and productive member of the younger activist groups/sets around the state that we really need them to be.

Some time in the next few hours our server's ip address will be switched. The current ip address that our server uses is associated with a SPAM account, and so a good chunk of the e-mails that get sent from the site get returned, making it very difficult for new people to sign up, for users to retrieve passwords, etc. So, if you come to the site and you get an error of some sort, please try to hard refresh your browser (shift + refresh) or come back a bit later. If you have any ongoing issues please e-mail me. We hope that this resolves any mail issues we're having and apologize for any problems before or during the switch.

Update: The switch seems to have gone off without a hitch. I did notice that a few comments made it onto the server with the old ip, and not the new one. If you made a comment and it disappeared, please send me an e-mail asap and I'll try to find it on the old server. But- they are only giving me about 12 more hours to grab stuff from the old site, so hurry!

I really don't have that much I'd like to say at the moment regarding yesterday's races, other than I'm really disappointed that my dad didn't defeat Donna Miller and that Damon didn't do better against Verna (I will have more to say on both of these races in the near future, but today I just need to decompress). I am, on the other hand, extremely excited that Nutter and Maria won (as well as some good judges, like Linda Carpenter). But above all I am relieved that the election is behind us and we can now move on to discussing and trying to address the issues that concern us.

With that in mind I wanted to pass some info about a book signing event tonight, for Ilona Meagher's very important book on PTSD Moving a Nation to Care: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and America's Returning Troops. I have been working online with Ilona to bring attention to issues related to PTSD and the treatment of returning soldiers for over a year, and I can tell you that she is an absolutely amazing person, who has made it her mission in life to bring care to our returning men and women in uniform.

If you are around and can make it, please come out and support Ilona in her quest to bring our soldiers the help they need as they readjust to civilian life. The invite is after the jump...

The good folks at Pierre Tierre made another video about Damon Roberts this week. Check it out:

If you missed Damon's first video, you can find it here.

For more information on Damon please visit damonkroberts.com, and if you live in the 2nd District, please push button #90 on May 15th, because as Damon so often says: "It's time for a change in South and Southwest Philadelphia!