Diplomacy, what is it good for?

by twit

According to President Bush, absolutely nothing. From CNN on May 15, 2008:

In his first address to Israel’s parliament Thursday, President Bush reiterated the United States’ “unbreakable” alliance with the Jewish state and denounced calls to negotiate with “terrorists and radicals.”

In a speech before the Knesset, Bush compared calls to talk with unnamed terrorist groups as a “foolish delusion” that was suggested before World War II.

“As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared, ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided,’ ” Bush said. “We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

We already know that the Bush Administration doesn’t follow this rhetoric when implementing its actual foreign policy. We’ve already seen Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice talk about how “very supportive” the United States is of the government in Lebanon, despite its ties to Hezbollah and the US condemnation of this “terrorist organization.”

The latest development in diplomacy is reported by The Guardian on July 16, 2008:

The US is planning to establish a diplomatic presence in Tehran for the first time in 30 years, a remarkable turnaround in policy by president George Bush who has pursued a hawkish approach to Iran throughout his time in office.

The Guardian has learned that an announcement will be made in the next month to establish a US interests section in Tehran, a halfway house to setting up a full embassy. The move will see US diplomats stationed in the country.

But who will the Republicans criticize now? CBS News reports on July 9, 2008:

Obama has been criticized by Republicans for being too eager to engage enemies of the U.S. in talks.

You go to the voting booth with the Constitution you’ve got…

by lestro

So we all know one of the candidates wasn’t born in the US, right?

It’s true, sometimes the email chains are real! John McCain was not born in the United States.

McCain’s dad was a Navy man (both McCain’s father and grandfather were admirals) and McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone while his father was stationed there in 1936.

This is only interesting because the US Constitution specifically states that the President must be a natural born citizen. It’s one of three requirements. The others, of course, are a minimum age of 35 and having lived in the US for 14 years. McCain easily meets the last two.

However, his citizenship is unquestioned, his natural born status is something that has been discussed, to the point that earlier this year the House and Senate both passed a bill stating his eligibility to run for President, based on the idea that the founders wouldn’t want to deny the Presidency to someone because their parents were in the military. Hard to disagree with.

But according to a new, in-depth look at the issue, it’s not enough:

The analysis, by Prof. Gabriel J. Chin, focused on a 1937 law that has been largely overlooked in the debate over Mr. McCain’s eligibility to be president.

The law conferred citizenship on children of American parents born in the Canal Zone after 1904, and it made John McCain a citizen just before his first birthday. But the law came too late, Professor Chin argued, to make Mr. McCain a natural-born citizen.

Interesting. But surely, the Canal Zone, the 10-mile strip of land that surrounds the Panama Canal, which was controlled by the US from 1903 to 1979 counts as the US, right? I mean, it was US territory at the time, right?

A series of early-20th-century decisions known as the Insular Cases, he wrote, ruled that unincorporated territories acquired by the United States were not part of the nation for constitutional purposes. The Insular Cases did not directly address the Canal Zone. But the zone was generally considered an unincorporated territory before it was returned to Panama in 1999, and some people born in the Canal Zone when it was under American jurisdiction have been deported from the United States or convicted of being here illegally.

Oh come on, surely the people of the time considered it part of the States, right?

T. Boone Pickens has a plan. Or is he just an old windbag?

by lestro

There’s a new commercial running all across the country in support of a new energy plan put forth by an 80-year-old oil billionaire from Oklahoma.

And here’s the weird thing: It appears to be a really good, progressive plan based bridging the gap to renewable, green power. He calls America the “Saudi Arabia of wind”:

Studies from around the world show that the Great Plains states are home to the greatest wind energy potential in the world — by far.

The Department of Energy reports that 20% of America’s electricity can come from wind. North Dakota alone has the potential to provide power for more than a quarter of the country….

Building wind facilities in the corridor that stretches from the Texas panhandle to North Dakota could produce 20% of the electricity for the United States at a cost of $1 trillion. It would take another $200 billion to build the capacity to transmit that energy to cities and towns.

That’s a lot of money, but it’s a one-time cost. And compared to the $700 billion we spend on foreign oil every year, it’s a bargain.

Also, being a good American capitalist, he pitches it as the economic boom it can be in both technology and in the small towns in flyover country (please note his financial stake in this plan):

Sweetwater was typical of many small towns in middle-America. With a shortage of good jobs, the youth of Sweetwater were leaving in search of greater opportunities. And the town’s population dropped from 12,000 to under 10,000.

When a large wind power facility was built outside of town, Sweetwater experienced a revival. New economic opportunity brought the town back to life and the population has grown back up to 12,000.

Does Johnny Mac even know what job he is applying for?

by lestro

There is a particularly interesting McCain quote in a recent article about the proposal by former Secretaries of State Jim Baker and Warren Christopher to make changes to the 1973 War Powers Act:

In a Republican presidential debate last October, Senator John McCain, the likely Republican presidential candidate, said he would take military action without going to Congress first, “if the situation is that it requires immediate action to ensure the security of the United States of America.”

“That’s what you take your oath to do when you’re inaugurated as president,” Mr. McCain said.

Actually, no, Johnny. The President does not take an oath to protect the United States, but to protect the Constitution.

The Great Sonics Swindle of 2008

by lestro

Many thoughts on the Great Sonics Swindle of 2008.

Not being a Sonics fan, I do not have a stake in the team, but I see in the Sonics saga the potential fate of any professional sports team city that has the audacity to stand up and tell billionaires that they are going to have support their own investments.

What happened is this: Former owner and Starbucks magnate Howard Schultz sold the team after failing to get a many hundred million dollar handout form the city and state to renovate the arena they use and reap the profits from. After Schultz realized the people, still sore over the extortion the Seahawks and Mariners laid on them to get Qwest and Safeco Fields, respectively, weren’t gonna pony up for a new stadium, he bailed, selling the team to the group led by Clay Bennett, of Oklahoma City.

Oklahoma City picked up a basketball jones after Hurricane Katrina forced the Hornets to relocate to the capital of Flyover Country while their city was pumped out and rebuilding began. Since there is nothing to do in Oklahoma City, the arrival of the NBA was HUGE and the people came out to support the team.

Once the Hornets went back to New Orleans - because the value of a sports team to a city cannot be measured in dollars alone - Oklahoma City got itchy. Sensing opportunity as well as the realization that yes, a sports team has a value that can;t be measured in dollars alone, Bennett turned his sights on the Sonics.

Bennett promised Schultz and the city that he was not there to steal the team - despite internal emails which revealed he was telling his investors exactly the opposite. But even Schultz said he knew selling the team to a guy from Oklahoma City would spur the government into coughing up money for a new stadium.

So Bennett pledged to negotiate in good faith with the city and state to get his shiny new stadium, knowing full well that what he was asking for demanding was ridiculous. Everything went as expected - excepting the offers from other local cities that were also dismissed - and even the NBA Commissioner - and the guy that inducted Clay Bennett into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame - David Stern approved the outright theft of the team.

The owners, of course, were looking out for their own good, knowing that when they wanted shiny new showplaces for their product, their host cities would have no choice but pony up. After all, if the No. 13 market in the country could lose a team to Oklafuckinghoma ( No. 45), anyone could be next.

Goodbye Blue Sky (or: The Democrats Eat Their Young)

by lestro

Just before Pink fully bricks himself in behind his wall at the end of the first act of Pink Floyd’s epic of isolation “The Wall,” the band kicks into the hauntingly beautiful “Goodbye Blue Sky,” which contains the following passage:

Did you see the frightened ones
Did you hear the falling bombs
The flames are all long gone
But the pain lingers on

It’s a song about the mental scarring left over from Pink’s father’s death in the war and it is another mental brick that Pink uses to complete his Wall after he starts to go mad.

Unfortunately, it could also be used to describe the current situation in the Democratic Party as the psychological and financial wounds of the relatively bitter primary campaign continue to haunt the party in a year that should be a grand triumph and victory over the opposition, which has systematically run just about every aspect of our government into the ground, while shitting on our ideals and principles as a nation.

But instead of being able to capitalize fully on the obvious national desire for change, the Democrats are doing everything they can to shoot themselves in the foot again. The flames from the campaign battle may be long gone, but the pain certainly lingers on.

Jesse Helms “shocked” to arrive in Hell

by lestro

LAKE OF FIRE, HELL - Former United States Senator Jesse Helms seemed surprised to wake up in Hell this morning, exclaiming “but I’m white!” as minions of Beelzebub poked and prodded the conservative Southern senator.

The tormenting of his soul is reportedly due to the multitude of hateful laws he supported, as well as the hypocrisies within his own religious beliefs for which Helms was famously known.

Helms’s shock is reported to have worn off quickly after he was reunited with fellow Southern racist Strom Thurmond.

According to Satan, the arrival of Helms has been expected, as he traded his soul for his Senate seat decades ago.

“Do you really think a jackass bigot like Jesse could have been elected that many times without the help of the forces of darkness?” the devil quipped. “Cracka, please.”

We hold these truths to be self-evident

by lestro

Today is July 4, Independence Day.

Every year, I make sure to take 15 minutes out of my barbeque/fireworks/beer time to make sure I read the Declaration of Independence.

It’s a good reminder of who we are supposed to be and what we are supposed to believe in about this country.

Unlike the Constitution, which is a working document designed to create and maintain a government that would protect the rights of its people, the Declaration is a statement of Ideals.

It is a philosophical treatise on human rights and government, as well as a point-by-point breakdown of exactly why and how King George was violating those rights.

And I love the simplicity of it: “Hey King George, here’s what we believe and here’s why you’re a jerk. Now piss off, we can take it from here. Love, Thomas Jefferson, et al.”

The very idea that governments draw their power from the consent of the governed and that we elect our leaders to represent us in a larger government was groundbreaking at the time.

America is less a country and more of an idea. We are a nation based not on the divine right of some inbred blueblood (except for the past two elections, of course), but a simple - yet breathtakingly groundbreaking - philosophy. The Declaration is the embodiment of that philosophy.

Written by Jefferson, parts of the declaration are very lyrical, soaring statements on all men being created equal and having the right (among others) to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, while others sections detail nearly 30 specific grievances and reasons for going it on our own. A nation founded on the pursuit of happiness (even if by “all men” he meant “all white, land-owning men”) is and was a truly amazing idea.

What’s even more important is the idea that it is not governments that bestow these rights, that these rights are “unalienable” and bestowed by the Creator. Governments exist simply to “secure these rights.” That is still a pretty radical idea now, let alone in the time of the Divine Right of Kings.

It’s not easy either. We’ve spent the 232 years since then trying to figure out exactly how to live up to such lofty ideals. Well, 225 years anyway. The last seven have been a pretty good exercise in deconstruction of these ideals.

But if we ever have questions about what we are supposed to stand for and why, we need to simply check our founding philosophical document. The philosophy of the nation is right there in the first paragraph.

The Declaration, however, not only separated us from Mother England, but also leaves the door open for future revolutions by laying out the reasons that governments can be overturned: whenever a government fails to secure our rights or ceases to draw its power from the consent of the governed, it is not only our right to overthrow them, but our “duty.”

That’s pretty punk rock when you get right down to it.

So while we all take time today to celebrate our national birthday and pursue our own happiness, be it a barbeque, fireworks or parades, take a few minutes and re-read the Declaration. It’s a quick, inspiring read of just more than 1300 words. Besides, we should all remind ourselves every now and again exactly what we’re doing over here, just to be sure we haven’t lost our way.

Happy 4th.

Old habits die hard, I suppose

by lestro

So the McCain people continue to freak out over Gen. Wesley Clark’s continued refusal to back down from his statements about McCain’s war experience as a proof he can lead:

Despite criticism from Republicans, Clark declined to back down in an interview Tuesday morning with ABC. “The experience that he had as a fighter pilot isn’t the same as having been at the highest levels of the military and having to make … life or death decisions about national, strategic issues,” he said.

Asked whether he felt he owed McCain an apology, Clark responded, “I’m very sorry that this has distracted from the message of patriotism that Sen. Obama wants to put out.” [...]

“I think that you can always cite a candidate’s service in the armed forces as a testimony to his character and his courage. But I don’t think early service justifies moving away from looking at a candidate’s judgment,” he replied.

McCain wants blood, of course:

“I think the time has come for Sen. Obama to not just repudiate Gen. Clark, but to cut him loose,” McCain said en route to Colombia.

One ally of the Republican presidential contender accused Obama of “winking and nodding” when he should be condemning Clark and his comments. “This is now about Obama, not Wesley Clark,” added Orson Swindle on a conference call with reporters organized by the McCain’s campaign.

Swindle, a retired colonel and - like McCain - prisoner of war in Vietnam, added that Obama should tell his surrogates to “knock this crap off.”

It should be pointed out though that Wesley Clark was a Clinton supporter who only became an Obama surrogate after she dropped out and I am not even sure if he has an official role at all in the campaign.

It should also be pointed out that Obama has been extremely complimentary about John McCain’s service in Vietnam.

I also can’t think of any other incidents in which Obama surrogates have taken a shot at Johnny Mac’s military service, which actually isn’t relevant anymore as the world and “war” are completely different than when Mac was fighting “the gooks” that he will always hate (his words, from 2000), despite our normalized relations and the passage of more than 35 years since the Vietnam war.

Vermont Law School pretends to fight for equality

by twit

How embarrassing. For an institution with the motto “law for the community and the world,” one has to wonder why they are engaging in self-mutilation that flies in the face of the most deeply held principles of the school.

Vermont Law School has long opposed the “don’t ask don’t tell” military policy, which is a great thing. They joined several schools in a lawsuit that went up to the United States Supreme Court, challenging the loss of federal funding that followed the refusal to permit military recruiters on campus. And they lost in a unanimous decision by the Court.

The response by Vermont Law School is to continue to bar the military recruiters on campus. Which means, according to the New York Times on June 30, 2008, that the school will not receive an estimated $300,000 to $500,000 in federal dollars each year that the ban continues. The new dean expresses how proud he is to “speak truth to power,” and how great it is to sacrifice such an enormous amount of money for such a tiny school.

I suppose I should send my Vermont Law School diploma back in protest, because I don’t want to display it anywhere if it means being associated with backward and destructive political action. If that school taught me anything, it was to speak out against foolish policies that ultimately hinder the fight for equality.

The Coming War with Iran

by twit

It looks like President Bush has had a hard-on for an invasion of Iran for awhile now. Way back on April 17, 2006, Seymour Hersh writes for the New Yorker:

A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was “absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb” if it is not stopped.

He said that the President believes that he must do “what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do,” and “that saving Iran is going to be his legacy.”

One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.”

He added, “I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?’ ”

Indeed. But it may have something to do with the practice of “stovepiping,” described by Seymour Hersh on February 11, 2008:

It is possible that Israel conveyed intelligence directly to senior members of the Bush Administration, without it being vetted by intelligence agencies. (This process, known as “stovepiping,” overwhelmed U.S. intelligence before the war in Iraq.)

That’s right. The Bush Administration is so competent in the arts of war and intelligence gathering, they apparently often bypass the regular sources and methods to collect the information they then use to implement their policy goals.

This all sounds so damn familiar…

Memo to the Bush Administration: Sex sells

by twit

So CBS Correspondent Lara Logan went on the Daily Show on June 17, 2008, and you can watch the entire episode here.

In response to Stewart’s question about whether we have lost our humanity, Logan answers “yes.” One might infer that she is not impressed with the limited war news coverage generally available to Americans.

And now we get to learn that there are sex scandals. What a coincidence.

monkeys in the middle

by twit

When the twit looks at how monkey imagery is tossed around in a rollicking sea of interpretation and meaning, the poor monkey seems very much like a kid at the center of a hotly-contested custody battle.

Monkeys haven’t done anything to anybody. Hollywood confirms that Apes will be a problem for humans, but monkeys are alright. Nevertheless, a monkey can be as offensive as a noose, depending on the context.

Monkey shirts, Monkey dolls, and now we have a Monkey God, hallelujah.

From the Times of India on June 24, 2008:

The idol is being presented to Obama as he is reported to be a Lord Hanuman devotee and carries with him a locket of the monkey god along with other good luck charms.

The twit very much wants one of these Obama charm bracelets…

Let he who is without bullshit cast the first stone

by lestro

Apparently, James Dobson, the multi-millionaire president of one of the largest fundamentalist mega-church televangelical empires in the country is going to go after both Barack Obama’s views on Christianity and the Constitution during his daily Focus on the Family address tomorrow and he is apparently so proud of it he leaked it to the Associated Press:

As Barack Obama broadens his outreach to evangelical voters, one of the movement’s biggest names, James Dobson, accuses the likely Democratic presidential nominee of distorting the Bible and pushing a “fruitcake interpretation” of the Constitution [...]

“Folks haven’t been reading their Bibles,” Obama said.

Dobson and [senior VP of FOF, Tom] Minnery accused Obama of wrongly equating Old Testament texts and dietary codes that no longer apply to Jesus’ teachings in the New Testament.

“I think he’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology,” Dobson said.

“… He is dragging biblical understanding through the gutter.”

What a fucking tool. According to the story, here’s why:

“Even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools?” Obama said. “Would we go with James Dobson’s or Al Sharpton’s?” referring to the civil rights leader.

So Dobson, a war supporter who ignores “Thou shalt not kill” when it behooves him to do so (and does the exact kind of bible cherry-picking bullshit (Leviticus, anyone?) one would normally associate with “deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview”) has the balls to talk about dragging biblical understanding through the gutter?

hooray, it’s Monday

by twit

Let’s have a riot for food, since nobody is expecting such a thing:

“We’re still trying to figure out why so many people showed up.”

Since the economy is going so great, food prices are so low and that price of gas makes us the envy of the world…

Milwaukee police said they have restored order but will remain outside of the Marcia P. Coggs Human Services Center after a crowd awaiting free food vouchers became unruly this morning.

it just makes no sense that 2,500 people would show up at a welfare office first thing on a Monday morning, and then start rushing the door…

Police responded to the building about 7 a.m. after 2,500 people lined up on the sidewalk and eventually began to block traffic in the street. A number of people had rushed the door, and some people became caught in the crush; however, there were no serious injuries, according to Schwartz.

Condoleezza Rice is “just very supportive” of Hezbollah

by twit

Slog points this bit out from a June 17, 2008 article by the NYT:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a surprise visit to Lebanon on Monday, the first by a senior American official since an agreement last month that handed decisive new powers to Hezbollah, the militant Shiite group that the United States considers a terrorist organization.

Ms. Rice met with government leaders from both the government majority and the Hezbollah-led opposition …

but there’s so much more!

“Congratulations,” Ms. Rice said as she shook hands with President Michel Suleiman, the former army chief who took office last month, filling a post that had been vacant for six months. “We are all just very supportive of your presidency and your government.”

Ninja bandits

by twit

According to Local6.com on June 18, 2008, there are ninja bandits on the loose in Florida:

Several men dressed in ninja costumes forced people into a cooler at gunpoint during the fourth robbery of a Central Florida drug store in a week.

now wherever did they get such an idea? The New York Times has a suggestion on June 16, 2008:

Between early 2004 and mid-2007, a period of unprecedented wealth on Wall Street, seven of the nation’s largest financial companies earned a combined $254 billion in profits.

The future and the past

by lestro

Yesterday Honda introduced its first hydrogen fuel-cell powered car. It’s a great step forward for alternative energies. A small one, sure, but at least it’s not oil…

The four-seater, called FCX Clarity, runs on electricity produced by combining hydrogen with oxygen, and emits water vapour.

Honda claims the vehicle offers three times better fuel efficiency than a traditional, petrol-powered car.

Honda plans to produce 200 of the cars over the next three years.

There are still problems with the technology, the least of which is trying to fill it up and the most of which is that while the car itself produces zero emissions, creating the hydrogen fuel produces more greenhouse gases than, well, the benefits of having a zero emissions vehicle in the first place.

But at least it’s not a limited resource produced primarily in places populated by people that hate us.

Meanwhile, in the past…

Comedy Porn

by twit

This guy is great. The LA Times describes him as:

[Alex] Kozinski, who was named chief judge of the 9th Circuit last year, is considered a judicial conservative on most issues. He was appointed to the federal bench by then-President Ronald Reagan in 1985. He has a national reputation for a brilliant legal mind and has developed a reputation as a champion of the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and expression.

So when his online porn stash becomes public in the midst of an obscenity trial that he is presiding over, does he meekly retreat from the appearance of impropriety? Not a chance. Instead he calls for an investigation, inviting an ethics panel to look over his collection. From the Associated Press on June 12, 2008:

The criminal prosecution of a hard-core pornographer turned into a personal trial for the presiding judge, who called for an investigation Thursday into his own conduct over lewd photos and videos stored on his family’s publicly accessible Web site.

Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, asked an ethics panel of the court to initiate proceedings after the disclosure about his trove of sexually explicit material.

“I will cooperate fully in any investigation,” Kozinski said in a statement.

The trouble with sockmonkeys

by twit

is that they are usually made to look like socks.

For example, via sockmonkeyfun.com:

these are the kind of sockmonkeys one might find if one googled such a thing.

The Moral High Ground doesn’t live here anymore

by lestro

Today’s NY Times contains a story titled “A Year Under Hamas Alters Life in Gaza” about how things have changed in the Gaza strip since Hamas, the terrorist group, took over control of the territory from Fatah, a former terrorist group, by shooting their opponents in the knees and tossing them off buildings.

The US and Israel reacted immediately, of course, attempting to isolate the people and force them to turn on the new leaders by cutting them off from the world.

But, as anyone who has ever read “Animal Farm” knows, isolation only makes it easier for the leaders to control the situation, as now they control the flow of information as well as the means of government, becoming providers for the people. Especially now that goods like food and fuel are scarce and Hamas controls everything being smuggled into the country (which is everything) through tunnels from Egypt.

And that taxes it, of course. It’s like the mob back in the prohibition days, controlling every aspect of business because of a failed policy on the part of the controlling authority (in this case, the US and Israel).

So not surprisingly, life isn’t good. The Israel and American blockade surely doesn’t add to the quality of life, but inside the fences, the religious fundamentalists get to rule over the territory like their own, private West Texas compound.

the twit reads the news

by twit

whoops: Those levees they had thought would hold the Des Moines river back have breached. Total evacuation has been ordered and is well underway in affected areas due to the coordinated efforts of the earlier voluntary evacuations and the police going door-to-door before dawn to wake and assist the people still there. The BBC has video from Cedar Rapids.

damn: Tim Russert is dead. Long live Tim Russert:

What we hope to do in this campaign is recognize there are big differences on big issues between John McCain and Barack Obama – the war in Iraq, Iran, Social Security, taxes. You don’t need to get into this other stuff. If it does surface, then I think the mainstream media has an obligation not to just instinctively put it out there without vetting it.

wow: Protests in Tibet continue, including a report about a monk using a sword to defend himself from officials attempting his arrest and then managing to escape into the mountains before 200 Chinese officers arrived.

To my sisters planning to vote for McCain

by twit

I realize it hurts that Hillary didn’t get the nomination, especially after all of the early media attention that said she was the inevitable candidate. It was a historical moment on its own, providing clear evidence of the cultural shift that finally allowed a woman to become known as the most credible candidate for the  Democratic ticket.

I realize that she was going to vindicate every woman, create a victory for every female held back and left behind by this sexist culture of ours. She called much-needed attention to the inequalities faced by women in America and the unfulfilled promises of liberty and justice for all.

Now the internet is ablaze with former Hillary supporters promising to either vote for McCain, to not vote at all or to write in Hillary on election day. As a woman, from my heart to yours, I ask you to remember why you supported Hillary in the first place. You care about the plight of women, you are sick and tired of being treated like a second-class citizen, you want change to come and you want it now.

I ask you to consider how staying home on election day, writing Hillary in or voting for McCain abandons that clarion call.

Will you work further destruction on your sisters and daughters in order to protest Hillary’s loss of the nomination? Will you work to secure a darker future for all women, now that your first choice is no longer available?

The cost of a ticket to history

by the squid

What do the Presidential Election, Belmont Stakes and the nightly news have in common?

Hype.

The horse racing scene gets but a few days a year where it is fashionable to be at the stables and looking over betting sheets, when novice betters get to try their hand at a sport that normally only consumes the thoughts and dollars of a select few.

If you have ever gone the a race track on “non-event” days, you know what I mean. The environment is seedy, stale and depressing.

However, during these few times when it is acceptable to get on your Sunday best for a Saturday event that mixes the rich with the poor, all have the expectation of witnessing history. This year, the media, sports-minded sportsmen, trainers and laymen were all assured a blowout.

um, i believe the answer is ’shirley chisholm’

 by lestro

and that ain’t her. sorry ted.

i see where you’re going though…

Gracious, she is not

by lestro

Even in defeat it is all about Hillary.

At a time when Democrats around the country should be celebrating and rallying around their now-official candidate, Hillary managed to suck all of the air out of the room and all the attention and headlines away from Obama with her non-concession speech Tuesday, in which she congratulated her opponent for “all they’ve accomplished” but never actually conceding defeat or officially pulling out of the race.

For the past two days, Hillary has had to have the spotlight on her, stealing all media attention with her “what does Hillary want” bit.

What does Hillary want? Attention. It’s that classic Clinton narcissism coming through in overt ways.

Word is now that she will continue to string this out for another few days before officially endorsing the party’s nominee on Saturday.

Her decision came after Democrats urged her Wednesday to leave the race and allow the party to coalesce around Mr. Obama…

Her decision came after a day of conversations with supporters on Capitol Hill about her future now that Mr. Obama had clinched the nomination.

Gotta love that, she has to be begged to drop out of a race that’s literally over.

We’re still talking about this, of course, because her speech Tuesday night was despicable and her refusal to express support for her opponent while continuing to try and campaign was another fun bit of doublespeak, especially this bit:

In the coming days, I’ll be consulting with supporters and party leaders to determine how to move forward with the best interests of our party and our country guiding my way.

Bullshit. You want to see best interests of the party? here’s what it looks like:

When the weak act strong…

by the squid

Congratulations to Senator Obama on sealing the Democratic nomination, he can finally exhale. However, he now needs to make the most important decision of his entire campaign - selecting a Vice President.

Sun Tzu implored strategists: When you are weak, act strong, when you are strong, act weak.

Senator Obama is now strong, but he has a very, very soft underbelly: experience. This is not said to undermine his historic win, as Obama has just beaten his most difficult rival.

However, it is important to remember what happened when Obama ran for his Senate seat in Illinois.

First they came for the rappers…

by loadz

At first, it was hip hop, but it all finally makes sense, now that we know it is heavy metal hair, Jewish-American conspiracies and 2-Pac that cause homosexuality in Iranian youth.

via the Middle East Media Research Institute TV Monitor Project

I’m glad someone finally connected all this together.