The two winners of the 2008 CDP Scholarship are:

Michelle Montoya
Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein

Congratulations to the both of you!

Click on the link below to read the winning essays.


[ Read the rest ... ]

Greetings Caucus Members!

After some considerable thought, I've sadly come to the conclusion that I need to resign as chair of the caucus.

Since I was elected state-wide President of the California Democratic Council last year, I have been deeply involved in rebuilding that organization.

I was hoping to be able to continue as chair, but I find myself spending more time on CDC and I don't want to be one of those people that simply has a title and doesn't do anything.

I'd rather turn over the caucus while we are still functioning strong and have good leaders.

I have enjoyed my tenure as chair and hope I have guided the caucus well.  I will continue to be a part of the caucus as board member for the time being and will help with whatever I can.

Thanks so much for your support over the years and if you would like to also help out with the CDC, please send me a note.

Henry Vandermeir
president@cdc-ca.org

Date: April 27-29, 2007
Where: San Diego Convention Center, 111 W. Harbor Drive, San Diego, CA
Caucus Meeting: Friday, April 27, 3:30pm-5:00pm

Approximately 100 delegates attended our caucus meeting in San Diego.

Josh Orton, Deputy Director New Media, Obama for America, gave an overview of the Barack Obama Campaign website and how they are using various Internet technology to pull in activists. The My Obama feature allows activists to essentially create their own sub-site with blogs, meetings, fundraising and a host of other features.

Brian Leubitz, Editor, Calitics.com, discussed politcal blog sites and how they are changing the face of news reporting.

Zachary Warma, San Diego was awarded our first annual scholarship.

Elections were held and everyone was re-elected to office. In addition, Don Monte was added as a board member.  Congratulations to all.

The phrase Network Neutrality describes networks that don't favor some destinations over others, or classes of application (for example the World Wide Web) over others (such as online gaming or Voice over IP).

However, several major Internet providers like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast are trying to control access to the Internet by deciding which Web sites are best for you. The speed at which a website loads would be based on which site pays them the most.

This means that large corporations would have an unfair advantage over their smaller competitors as they will be able to afford to pay the most. This also means that startup sites with new ideas and applications will never get seen if they can't afford to pay the high fees to get their sites viewed.

In addition, this will allow ISPs to control which websites you have access to. There have already been several documented cases where ISPs have blocked access to various sites:

• Time Warner's AOL blocked all emails that mentioned www.dearaol.com -- an advocacy campaign opposing the company's pay-to-send e-mail scheme.
  
• Canada's telephone giant Telus blocked customers from visiting a Web site sympathetic to the Telecommunications Workers Union during a contentious labor dispute.

A major communications bill that addresses Net Neutrality is in front of Congress right now and is in danger of being defeated by the large corporations if we don't speak up.

For a brief video discussing this issue, visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9jHOn0EW8U