DRUDGE REPORT 2008®

'DOESN'T LOOK LIKE ALL THE OTHERS'

MyDD :: Will They Go?

Will They Go?

by Josh Orton, Wed Jul 30, 2008 at 02:28:44 PM EST

Yesterday, Todd flagged a big story in the National Journal:

Nine of 12 targeted Republicans running in the most competitive Senate races this fall are either skipping the Republican convention in St. Paul, Minn., or have not decided whether to attend.

For example, among those looking to duck their party's convention? Elizabeth Dole - former presidential candidate, wife of Bob Dole, and current North Carolina Senator up for re-election against Road to 60 candidate Kay Hagen.

Dole's excuse?

"She's got a busy week scheduled in North Carolina," [spokeswoman] Hallaway said. "When there are breaks in the Senate schedule, she spends as much time as possible in North Carolina."

What a dedicated public servant.

Problem is - we still don't have answers from a lot of the Republicans running for Senate - either as challengers or as incumbents.

So MyDD is launching a public service campaign - "Will They Go?"

Below is a list of Republicans in competitive Senate races and whether they've committed to going to their party's convention. We realize it's not an easy decision for a Republican this year: Bush's approval is consistently below freezing, the GOP's brand is in the gutter, and the Republican presidential nominee is...well...John McCain.

But there's a lot for Republicans to be proud of (note: list of things for Republicans to be proud of tk). So we feel it's important for Senate candidates to stand together this year as Republicans - and we should do our part to encourage that Republican solidarity for those on the fence:

• If you find public news articles or announcements about whether one of the candidates will go to the GOP convention, drop the quote or link in the comments.
• If you call one of their campaign offices and politely ask for an answer, email us at willtheygo(at)gmail(dot)com. (Campaign websites are linked below)

We'll update the tally of Senate candidates throughout the week.

Let's get some answers:

On the fence:
• Gordon Smith (inc-OR)
  
• Roger Wicker (inc-MS)
  
• John Sununu (inc-NH)
  
• Pat Roberts (inc-KS)
  
• Jim Inhofe (inc-OK)
  
• Big Bad John Cornyn (inc-TX)
  
• John Kennedy (challenger-LA)
  
• Steve Pearce (challenger-NM)

  Going:

• Norm Coleman
  
• Mitch McConnell
  
• Jim Gilmore

  Not going:

• Ted Stevens
  
• Susan Collins
  
• Bob Schaffer
  
• Elizabeth Dole

The Long Run - As a Professor, Obama Enthralled Students and Puzzled Faculty - Series - NYTimes.com

The Long Run - As a Professor, Obama Enthralled Students and Puzzled Faculty - Series - NYTimes.com: "The Long Run
Teaching Law, Testing Ideas, Obama Stood Apart
Courtesy Obama Campaign

NOT AFRAID TO PROVOKE Barack Obama taught at the University of Chicago Law School for 12 years. Former students say he tested many of the ideas of his presidential campaign in the classroom.

CHICAGO — The young law professor stood apart in too many ways to count. At a school where economic analysis was all the rage, he taught rights, race and gender. Other faculty members dreamed of tenured positions; he turned them down. While most colleagues published by the pound, he never completed a single work of legal scholarship."

At a formal institution, Barack Obama was a loose presence, joking with students about their romantic prospects, using first names, referring to case law one moment and “The Godfather” the next. He was also an enigmatic one, often leaving fellow faculty members guessing about his precise views.

Mr. Obama, now the junior senator from Illinois and the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, spent 12 years at the University of Chicago Law School. Most aspiring politicians do not dwell in the halls of academia, and few promising young legal thinkers toil in state legislatures. Mr. Obama planted a foot in each, splitting his weeks between an elite law school and the far less rarefied atmosphere of the Illinois Senate.

Before he outraised every other presidential primary candidate in American history, Mr. Obama marched students through the thickets of campaign finance law. Before he helped redraw his own State Senate district, making it whiter and wealthier, he taught districting as a racially fraught study in how power is secured. And before he posed what may be the ultimate test of racial equality — whether Americans will elect a black president — he led students through African-Americans’ long fight for equal status.

Standing in his favorite classroom in the austere main building, sharp-witted students looming above him, Mr. Obama refined his public speaking style, his debating abilities, his beliefs.

“He tested his ideas in classrooms,” said Dennis Hutchinson, a colleague. Every seminar hour brought a new round of, “Is affirmative action justified? Under what circumstances?” as Mr. Hutchinson put it.

But Mr. Obama’s years at the law school are also another chapter — see United States Senate, c. 2006 — in which he seemed as intently focused on his own political rise as on the institution itself. Mr. Obama, who declined to be interviewed for this article, was well liked at the law school, yet he was always slightly apart from it, leaving some colleagues feeling a little cheated that he did not fully engage. The Chicago faculty is more rightward-leaning than that of other top law schools, but if teaching alongside some of the most formidable conservative minds in the country had any impact on Mr. Obama, no one can quite point to it.

“I don’t think anything that went on in these chambers affected him,” said Richard Epstein, a libertarian colleague who says he longed for Mr. Obama to venture beyond his ideological and topical comfort zones. “His entire life, as best I can tell, is one in which he’s always been a thoughtful listener and questioner, but he’s never stepped up to the plate and taken full swings.”

Mr. Obama had other business on his mind, embarking on five political races during his 12 years at the school. Teaching gave him satisfaction, along with a perch and a paycheck, but he was impatient with academic debates over “whether to drop a footnote or not drop a footnote,” said Abner J. Mikva, a mentor whose own career has spanned Congress, the federal bench and the same law school.

Douglas Baird, another colleague, remembers once asking Mr. Obama to assess potential candidates for governor.

“First of all, I’m not running for governor, “ Mr. Obama told him. “But if I did, I would expect you to support me.”

He was a third-year state senator at the time.

Popular and Enigmatic

Mr. Obama arrived at the law school in 1991 thanks to Michael W. McConnell, a conservative scholar who is now a federal appellate judge. As president of The Harvard Law Review, Mr. Obama had impressed Mr. McConnell with editing suggestions on an article; on little more than that, the law school gave him a fellowship, which amounted to an office and a computer, which he used to write his memoir, “Dreams From My Father.”

The school had almost no black faculty members, a special embarrassment given its location on the South Side. Its sleek halls bordered a neighborhood crumbling with poverty and neglect. In his 2000 Congressional primary race, Representative Bobby L. Rush, a former Black Panther running for re-election, used Mr. Obama’s ties to the school to label him an egghead and an elitist.

At the school, Mr. Obama taught three courses, ascending to senior lecturer, a title otherwise carried only by a few federal judges. His most traditional course was in the due process and equal protection areas of constitutional law. His voting rights class traced the evolution of election law, from the disenfranchisement of blacks to contemporary debates over districting and campaign finance. Mr. Obama was so interested in the subject that he helped Richard Pildes, a professor at New York University, develop a leading casebook in the field.

His most original course, a historical and political seminar as much as a legal one, was on racism and law. Mr. Obama improvised his own textbook, including classic cases like Brown v. Board of Education, and essays by Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Dubois, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, as well as conservative thinkers like Robert H. Bork.

Mr. Obama was especially eager for his charges to understand the horrors of the past, students say. He assigned a 1919 catalog of lynching victims, including some who were first raped or stripped of their ears and fingers, others who were pregnant or lynched with their children, and some whose charred bodies were sold off, bone fragment by bone fragment, to gawkers.

“Are there legal remedies that alleviate not just existing racism, but racism from the past?” Adam Gross, now a public interest lawyer in Chicago, wrote in his class notes in April 1994.

For all the weighty material, Mr. Obama had a disarming touch. He did not belittle students; instead he drew them out, restating and polishing halting answers, students recall. In one class on race, he imitated the way clueless white people talked. “Why are your friends at the housing projects shooting each other?” he asked in a mock-innocent voice.

A favorite theme, said Salil Mehra, now a law professor at Temple University, were the values and cultural touchstones that Americans share. Mr. Obama’s case in point: his wife, Michelle, a black woman, loved “The Brady Bunch” so much that she could identify every episode by its opening shots.

As his reputation for frank, exciting discussion spread, enrollment in his classes swelled. Most scores on his teaching evaluations were positive to superlative. Some students started referring to themselves as his groupies. (Mr. Obama, in turn, could play the star. In what even some fans saw as self-absorption, Mr. Obama’s hypothetical cases occasionally featured himself. “Take Barack Obama, there’s a good-looking guy,” he would introduce a twisty legal case.)

Challenging Assumptions

Liberals flocked to his classes, seeking refuge. After all, the professor was a progressive politician who backed child care subsidies and laws against racial profiling, and in a 1996 interview with the school newspaper sounded skeptical of President Bill Clinton’s efforts to reach across the aisle.

“On the national level, bipartisanship usually means Democrats ignore the needs of the poor and abandon the idea that government can play a role in issues of poverty, race discrimination, sex discrimination or environmental protection,” Mr. Obama said.

But the liberal students did not necessarily find reassurance. “For people who thought they were getting a doctrinal, rah-rah experience, it wasn’t that kind of class,” said D. Daniel Sokol, a former student who now teaches law at the University of Florida at Gainesville.

For one thing, Mr. Obama’s courses chronicled the failure of liberal policies and court-led efforts at social change: the Reconstruction-era amendments that were rendered meaningless by a century of resistance, the way the triumph of Brown gave way to fights over busing, the voting rights laws that crowded blacks into as few districts as possible. He was wary of noble theories, students say; instead, they call Mr. Obama a contextualist, willing to look past legal niceties to get results.

For another, Mr. Obama liked to provoke. He wanted his charges to try arguing that life was better under segregation, that black people were better athletes than white ones.

“I remember thinking, ‘You’re offending my liberal instincts,’ ” Mary Ellen Callahan, now a privacy lawyer in Washington, recalled.

In his voting rights course, Mr. Obama taught Lani Guinier’s proposals for structuring elections differently to increase minority representation. Opponents attacked those suggestions when Ms. Guinier was nominated as assistant attorney general for civil rights in 1993, costing her the post.

“I think he thought they were good and worth trying,” said David Franklin, who now teaches law at DePaul University in Chicago.

But whether out of professorial reserve or budding political caution, Mr. Obama would not say so directly. “He surfaced all the competing points of view on Guinier’s proposals with total neutrality and equanimity,” Mr. Franklin said. “He just let the class debate the merits of them back and forth.”

While students appreciated Mr. Obama’s evenhandedness, colleagues sometimes wanted him to take a stand. When two fellow faculty members asked him to support a controversial antigang measure, allowing the Chicago police to disperse and eventually arrest loiterers who had no clear reason to gather, Mr. Obama discussed the issue with unusual thoughtfulness, they say, but gave little sign of who should prevail — the American Civil Liberties Union, which opposed the measure, or the community groups that supported it out of concern about crime.

“He just observed it with a kind of interest,” said Daniel Kahan, now a professor at Yale.

Nor could his views be gleaned from scholarship; Mr. Obama has never published any. He was too busy, but also, Mr. Epstein believes, he was unwilling to put his name to anything that could haunt him politically, as Ms. Guinier’s writings had hurt her. “He figured out, you lay low,” Mr. Epstein said.

The Chicago law faculty is full of intellectually fiery friendships that burn across ideological lines. Three times a week, professors do combat over lunch at a special round table in the university’s faculty club, and they share and defend their research in workshop discussions. Mr. Obama rarely attended, even when he was in town.

“I’m not sure he was close to anyone,” Mr. Hutchinson said, except for a few liberal constitutional law professors, like Cass Sunstein, now an occasional adviser to his campaign. Mr. Obama was working two other jobs, after all, in the State Senate and at a civil rights law firm.

Several colleagues say Mr. Obama was surely influenced by the ideas swirling around the law school campus: the prevailing market-friendliness, or economic analysis of the impact of laws. But none could say how. “I’m not sure we changed him,” Mr. Baird said.

Because he never fully engaged, Mr. Obama “doesn’t have the slightest sense of where folks like me are coming from,” Mr. Epstein said. “He was a successful teacher and an absentee tenant on the other issues.”

Leaving the Classroom

As Mr. Obama built his political career, his so-called groupies became an early core of supporters, handing out leaflets and hosting fund-raisers in their modest apartments.

“Maybe we charged an audacious $20?” said Jesse Ruiz, now a corporate lawyer in Chicago. Mr. Obama was sheepish asking for even that, Mr. Ruiz recalls. With no staff, Mr. Obama would come by the day after a fund-raiser to stuff the proceeds into a backpack.

Mr. Obama never mentioned his humiliating, hopeless campaign against Mr. Rush in class (he lost by a two-to-one margin), though colleagues noticed that he seemed exhausted and was smoking more than usual.

Soon after, the faculty saw an opening and made him its best offer yet: Tenure upon hiring. A handsome salary, more than the $60,000 he was making in the State Senate or the $60,000 he earned teaching part time. A job for Michelle Obama directing the legal clinic.

Your political career is dead, Daniel Fischel, then the dean, said he told Mr. Obama, gently. Mr. Obama turned the offer down. Two years later, he decided to run for the Senate. He canceled his course load and has not taught since.

Now, watching the news, it is dawning on Mr. Obama’s former students that he was mining material for his political future even as he taught them.

Byron Rodriguez, a real estate lawyer in San Francisco, recalls his professor’s admiration for the soaring but plainspoken speeches of Frederick Douglass.

“No one speaks this way anymore,” Mr. Obama told his class, wondering aloud what had happened to the art of political oratory. In particular, Mr. Obama admired Douglass’s use of a collective voice that embraced black and white concerns, one that Mr. Obama has now adopted himself.

In class, Mr. Obama sounded many of the same themes he does on the campaign trail, Ms. Callahan said, ticking them off: “self-determinism as opposed to paternalism, strength in numbers, his concept of community development.”

But as a professor, students say, Mr. Obama was in the business of complication, showing that even the best-reasoned rules have unintended consequences, that competing legal interests cannot always be resolved, that a rule that promotes justice in one case can be unfair in the next.

So even some former students who are thrilled at Mr. Obama’s success wince when they hear him speaking like the politician he has so fully become.

“When you hear him talking about issues, it’s at a level so much simpler than the one he’s capable of,” Mr. Rodriguez said. “He was a lot more fun to listen to back then.”

I Oppose

I am with Joel in his opposition to the assited suicide/death with dignity act.

I believe that we all have an innate right to suicide. Indeed, such a right seems to me to be intrinsic to a society that largely accepts the Jesus story of a man-god who chose suicide.

However, I do not believe that physicians shuld be authorized to kill.

The dangers of relaxing our traditions in this regard are obvious. Put crassly, the old, sick and poor cost us money. One does not need to imagine a conscious policy of eliminating these people to be worried.

Imagine two 67 yo (my age)

George Bromwell, a prominent investor and successful blogger, decides that his MS is no longer bearable. He approaches a suicide doctor who initiates counseling. The counselor evokes Georges wife and kids, the popularity of his blog, etc.

Isaac Washington, after 20 years in prison, is released out of compassion for his MS. Isaac adapts poorly to the loneliness outside life. He approaches a suicide doctor who initiates counseling. The counselor has a lot of clients like Isaac and the doctor is very busy.

I will let others finish the stories.

I also think that Lee and other advocates fail t tell us how common a problem this really is and who is faced with the problem? How many Georges and Isaacs now can not get the help they need. Surely George can find some doc willing to give him morphine to escape pain. Isaac is more likely to have trouble finding such a pleasant answer to his problems but the moral dilemma raised by the all to common Isaac examples seems to me to be overwhelming.

Finally, I assume proponents of I-1000 are aware that physicians NOW have the right to help patients choose life promoting therapies vs. therapies that shorten life? Patients with terminal disease often suffer a lot and they, their families and their physicians make decisions about how aggressively to treat the suffering, even when that treatment means the pt's life will be shortened.

Although I have not to practice medicine now in decades, one reason I chose research over practice was that this decision was just to hard for me. I greatly admire my colleagues who have to help patients through this =stage of life and would hope we could all keep that process out of the courts pf law.

Hominid Views

Saturday’s analysis showed Sen. Barack Obama leading Sen. John McCain by 316 to 222 electoral votes (on average) and, in an election held then, would have a 99.7% chance of winning.

Saturday’s analysis showed Sen. Barack Obama leading Sen. John McCain by 316 to 222 electoral votes (on average) and, in an election held then, would have a 99.7% chance of winning."

Here is the beginning of my post. And here is the rest of it.

Of coure one does not need to accept science, Darryl's analysis could fail. sCIENCE IS NOT RELIGION.

Religions* demand that you accept some set of facts on the authority of the leaders of the religion. As you know, Judaism begins with the Schema, a statement that there is one and only one God. Enforcement of acceptance of these "facts" has been so important to the cohesion of society that AFIK all advanced societies have had some form of blasphemy restriction .. often actual laws saying one should not question. Science makes no similar demand since science is based on a model of continual inquiry.

However, since the advent of science, this discipline has discovered "facts" that ares so well established that scientists beleive in these facts and society acts based on these facts.

Just as our ancestors tried to hold the Jewish state together with laws against blasphemy, from Nicea on the Roman empire required beiief in the official canon. In our own time, the communist states had canons of beleifs.

So, my question to Repricans is, why would you NOT be concerned to read that Obama is so far ahead.? Do you have the expertise to challege Bruce Ames. As with global warming, wouldn't you be better off trusting the experts until proven elsewise?

Now, before you jump on me, I am NOT sayihg that the consensus of scientists is that Obama will win. Science is about probabilities and for now ....


* with apologies to Buddhism

Delta doubles charge for second checked bag, boosts other fees - USATODAY.com

Delta doubles charge for second checked bag, boosts other fees - USATODAY.com: "Delta doubles charge for second checked bag, boosts other fees

By Harry R. Weber, AP Business Writer

This is getting silly. If the true reson is fule, then the charge should be like a pasenger's fair ...based on the length of the trip. If this sort of piecemeal pricing is a good ise, then fine get it in place all at once. Oh oh, that would require fed. regulation!!!


Here is the beginning of my post. And here is the rest of it.


ATLANTA — Delta Air Lines Inc., the third-largest U.S. carrier, will double its charge for checking a second bag on a domestic flight as part of a set of fee increases to help offset the high cost of fuel.

The Atlanta-based carrier said Tuesday that the changes will apply to customers who purchase a ticket on or after Thursday for travel on or after Aug. 5.

Fee changes include an increase from $25 to $50 to check a second bag for domestic travel. Fees for specialty items that require special handling, such as surfboards or ski equipment, will increase on domestic and international flights, Delta said.

First Class, BusinessElite and Medallion customers will still be able to check up to three bags at no charge, the airline said.

Delta said that as fuel costs remain high, it believes revising its fee structure for excess"

Buy it now

The ultimate store:

Israeli paper publishes Obama Western Wall prayer

Israeli paper publishes Obama Western Wall prayer: "JERUSALEM (AP) - A written prayer that Barack Obama left this week in the cracks of the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, asks God to guide him and guard his family, an Israeli newspaper reported Friday.

'Lord—Protect my family and me,' reads the note published in the Maariv daily. 'Forgive me my sins, and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will.'

The paper's decision to make the note public drew fire. The rabbi in charge of the Western Wall, Shmuel Rabinovitz, said publishing the note intruded in Obama's relationship with God.

'The notes placed between the stones of the Western Wall are between a person and his maker. It is forbidden to read them or make any use of them,' he told Army Radio. The publication 'damages the Western Wall and damages the personal, deep part of every one of us that we keep to ourselves,' he said.

Another Israeli paper, Yediot Ahronot, published an article Friday saying it had also obtained the note but decided not to publish it to respect Obama's privacy."

Here is the beginning of my post. And here is the rest of it.

Obama's Oratory in Berlin

Here is the beginning of my post. And here is the rest of it.

Obama's speech in Berlin was a greay success.

Yet, somehow, his message seems to have missed the many admirers who rnjoyed the eloquence and music of Obama's Oratory in Berlin.

The essence, as I see it, was to put forward two principles of what we may, hopefully, one day, see as Obamaism.

I. Celebration of Americanism. We are a melding of immigrants with a unique tradition. We share that tradition with the world. This concept is the antithesis of Bush:Reagan imperialism, Obama is returning to t Meme previously offered by Jimmy Carter and John Kennedy.

Obama's Americanism is Reagan's Americanism stripped of arrogance. It celebrates the true role our history has had in a trtadtion that now includes other great democracies that contribute their own threads to a world wide movement.

The implications of renewed Americanism for foreign policy are immense. It suggests that we will propagandize the world as we once did with the Peace Corps and Alliance for Progress.

2. MultiLateralism Obama's vision is multilateral, a vison where the US may not be and should not always be the leader. The contrast with Bush, Clinton is stark,

Oh oh.

This raises too many questions.

He ventured forth to bring light to the world

The anointed one's pilgrimage to the Holy Land is a miracle in action - and a blessing to all his faithful followers

Gerard Baker

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.

The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: “Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?”

In the great Battles of Caucus and Primary he smote the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites.

Background

• Obama fears the Blair effect as tour continues

• The Europhiles are not the future, Mr Obama

• The Bugle - Barack Obama is coming to Europe!

• Our leaders go after some Obama magic

And so it was, in the fullness of time, before the harvest month of the appointed year, the Child ventured forth - for the first time - to bring the light unto all the world.

He travelled fleet of foot and light of camel, with a small retinue that consisted only of his loyal disciples from the tribe of the Media. He ventured first to the land of the Hindu Kush, where the

Taleban had harboured the viper of al-Qaeda in their bosom, raining terror on all the world.

And the Child spake and the tribes of Nato immediately loosed the Caveats that had previously bound them. And in the great battle that ensued the forces of the light were triumphant. For as long as the Child stood with his arms raised aloft, the enemy suffered great blows and the threat of terror was no more.

From there he went forth to Mesopotamia where he was received by the great ruler al-Maliki, and al-Maliki spake unto him and blessed his Sixteen Month Troop Withdrawal Plan even as the imperial warrior Petraeus tried to destroy it.

And lo, in Mesopotamia, a miracle occurred. Even though the Great Surge of Armour that the evil Bush had ordered had been a terrible mistake, a waste of vital military resources and doomed to end in disaster, the Child's very presence suddenly brought forth a great victory for the forces of the light.

And the Persians, who saw all this and were greatly fearful, longed to speak with the Child and saw that the Child was the bringer of peace. At the mention of his name they quickly laid aside their intrigues and beat their uranium swords into civil nuclear energy ploughshares.

From there the Child went up to the city of Jerusalem, and entered through the gate seated on an ass. The crowds of network anchors who had followed him from afar cheered “Hosanna” and waved great palm fronds and strewed them at his feet.

In Jerusalem and in surrounding Palestine, the Child spake to the Hebrews and the Arabs, as the Scripture had foretold. And in an instant, the lion lay down with the lamb, and the Israelites and Ishmaelites ended their long enmity and lived for ever after in peace.

As word spread throughout the land about the Child's wondrous works, peoples from all over flocked to hear him; Hittites and Abbasids; Obamacons and McCainiacs; Cameroonians and Blairites.

And they told of strange and wondrous things that greeted the news of the Child's journey. Around the world, global temperatures began to decline, and the ocean levels fell and the great warming was over.

The Great Prophet Algore of Nobel and Oscar, who many had believed was the anointed one, smiled and told his followers that the Child was the one generations had been waiting for.

And there were other wonderful signs. In the city of the Street at the Wall, spreads on interbank interest rates dropped like manna from Heaven and rates on credit default swaps fell to the ground as dead birds from the almond tree, and the people who had lived in foreclosure were able to borrow again.

Black gold gushed from the ground at prices well below $140 per barrel. In hospitals across the land the sick were cured even though they were uninsured. And all because the Child had pronounced it.

And this is the testimony of one who speaks the truth and bears witness to the truth so that you might believe. And he knows it is the truth for he saw it all on CNN and the BBC and in the pages of The New York Times.

Then the Child ventured forth from Israel and Palestine and stepped onto the shores of the Old Continent. In the land of Queen Angela of Merkel, vast multitudes gathered to hear his voice, and he preached to them at length.

But when he had finished speaking his disciples told him the crowd was hungry, for they had had nothing to eat all the hours they had waited for him.

And so the Child told his disciples to fetch some food but all they had was five loaves and a couple of frankfurters. So he took the bread and the frankfurters and blessed them and told his disciples to feed the multitudes. And when all had eaten their fill, the scraps filled twelve baskets.

Thence he travelled west to Mount Sarkozy. Even the beauteous Princess Carla of the tribe of the Bruni was struck by awe and she was great in love with the Child, but he was tempted not.

On the Seventh Day he walked across the Channel of the Angles to the ancient land of the hooligans. There he was welcomed with open arms by the once great prophet Blair and his successor, Gordon the Leper, and his successor, David the Golden One.

And suddenly, with the men appeared the archangel Gabriel and the whole host of the heavenly choir, ranks of cherubim and seraphim, all praising God and singing: “Yes, We Can.”

Anticipation, Griping Increases Before Obama Speech in Berlin | Germany | Deutsche Welle | 23.07.2008

Anticipation, Griping Increases Before Obama Speech in Berlin | Germany | Deutsche Welle | 23.07.2008: "The 'Obama show,' as one newspaper calls it, is set to take Berlin by storm on Thursday, July 24. But a small minority is questioning whether the Democratic candidate can live up to the hype -- or justify the costs.

In the build-up to what is probably the most anticipated American campaign speech ever held on foreign soil, one of Berlin's main city magazines offered its readership cut-out American flags to wave at Barack Obama's planned address.

The presumed Democratic nominee plans to arrive in the German capital on Thursday morning. Not much of his agenda for the day has been made public, but he is set to speak at Berlin's Victory Column -- formally the main site of the Love Parade -- at 7PM local time.

Those who want to hear Obama live have been told to start arriving three hours earlier. Berlin authorities say that as many as a million people could attend. Four TV stations are broadcasting the entire speech, and the rest are scrambling to secure prime locations at the site.

Only around 13,000 Americans live in Berlin. So what is motivating Berliners and Germans in general to treat a Democratic presidential hopeful to such a royal welcome?

He's not Bush"

Here is the beginning of my post. And here is the rest of it.

The Evil Ones Attack Goldstein

HorsesAss.Org: "Denial of Service
by Goldy, 07/21/2008, 10:03 AM

As you may have noticed, HA started experiencing technical difficulties almost the minute I stepped onto the plane to Austin. If I was paranoid, I might have thought it was exquisitely timed.

It turns out we were being assaulted by waves of spam comments, overwhelming our database server from time to time, an attack that escalated some time early this morning to eventually take down the entire server… web, email, DB and all. According to my hosting company HA was being hit with hundreds of comments a second, from multiple, rolling IPs. So they removed the Wordpress file that handles comment posting, and everything seems to be functioning normally now.

That is, except for comments.

Right now, if you attempt to post a comment, you should be getting a blank screen. I’m working on a more elegant interim solution until we figure out a permanent one.

As for the motivation of the spammers, I can’t say whether it is political or not, but I’m not seeing similar reports of this happening at other Wordpress blogs, except for Darryl’s Hominid Views. Hmm.

UPDATE:
I’ve just flipped a switch requiring you to log in as a registered user in order to post a comment. Of course, there is no registration enabled yet, so it’s merely a cosmetic change that prevents you"

Here is the beginning of my post. And here is the rest of it.

McCain gets a Rejection Slip

NYT REJECTS MCCAIN'S EDITORIAL; SHOULD 'MIRROR' OBAMA
Mon Jul 21 2008 12:00:25 ET Drudge

An editorial written by Republican presidential hopeful McCain has been rejected by the NEW YORK TIMES -- less than a week after the paper published an essay written by Obama, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

The paper's decision to refuse McCain's direct rebuttal to Obama's 'My Plan for Iraq' has ignited explosive charges of media bias in top Republican circles.

'It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama's piece,' NYT Op-Ed editor David Shipley explained in an email late Friday to McCain's staff. 'I'm not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written.'

MORE

In McCain's submission to the TIMES, he writes of Obama: 'I am dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it... if we don't win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president.'

NYT's Shipley advised McCain to try again: 'I'd be pleased, though, to look at another draft.'

[Shipley served in the Clinton Administration from 1995 until 1997 as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Presidential Speechwriter.]

MORE

A top McCain source claims the paper simply does not agree with the senator's Iraq policy, and wants him to change it, not "re-work the draft."

McCain writes in the rejected essay: 'Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. 'I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,' he said on January 10, 2007. 'In fact, I think it will do the reverse.'

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Shipley, who is on vacation this week, explained his decision not to run the editorial.

'The Obama piece worked for me because it offered new information (it appeared before his speech); while Senator Obama discussed Senator McCain, he also went into detail about his own plans.'

Shipley continues: 'It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama's piece. To that end, the article would have to articulate, in concrete terms, how Senator McCain defines victory in Iraq.'

Al Jazeera English - News

Al Jazeera English - News: "Hope lives on for Russia's dead monk


Buddhists in Russia are hoping for a revival of their faith, which was almsot wiped out under Joseph Stalin, the Soviet leader.

Al Jazeera's Jonah Hull reports on one Buddhist monk whose body has lived on, despite his death more than 80 years ago."

US Election: Senior aide to Barack Obama says Obamamaniacs' hopes unrealistic - Telegraph

US Election: Senior aide to Barack Obama says Obamamaniacs' hopes unrealistic - Telegraph: "With Obamamania hitting Britain, Europe and the Middle East when he visits this week, one of his most senior aides told The Sunday Telegraph that the Democratic presidential candidate is very conscious of the rapturous reception that may await him.

Greg Craig, one Mr Obama's inner circle of foreign policy advisers travelling with him, described the scale of infatuation for Mr Obama in Europe, which has seen him compared to John F. Kennedy, as 'amazing'.

But he added: 'He is very conscious of it. He knows he has become a vehicle for peoples' hopes and dreams and expectations and we all fear that such expectations tend to be unrealistic.'"

HorsesAss.Org » Blog Archive » I Second That Motion

R_E_S_P_O_N_S_I_B_I_L_I_T_Y vs P-R-I-V-I-L-I-D-G-E

The failure of Karl Rove to testify on his own actions is part and parcel of the erosion of responsibility among America’s privileged class.
The claim of executive privilege is bunk, but it is not all that different from the protection for responsibility that our legal and financial systems have created.

examples:

End of Entrepreneurship How much risk is their today in being a high level corporate maanager? Company failes, you get a golden parachute.

Unequal Before the Law At $300 and rising, attorney’s fees are beyond the mean of the middle and lower classes. You get fucked by a car dealer. Forgettboutit, sayeth the lawyer. Or she will suggest a compromise to save YOU money. Only the rich can stand up in court in civil cases. Criminal cases are even worse. Can the rich get away with murder? Ask OJ Simpson.
The Power of the Emperor Ordinary government employess routinely get fired for deeds far less serious than the incompetence of the high governement officials. BUT, to make it worse, they too have golden parachutes … actually theirs are platinum. John McCain, Bill Clinton, DD Eisenhower, Bill Dole, Harry Truman, Sunny Jim (I suspect)…. all these folks came to office with VERY modest means yet, when fired or retired somehow had become wealthy. Utter idiots like Dan Quayle, parlay their failures into cushy well paying jobs. How is this different from the life long support in luxury we see for exiled princes and commissars?
Martha Stewart and Mike Millikan Go on Vacation Siggh, these two ripped off our system for unfathomable amounts of money. Yet, both served relatively pleasant times in prison followed by a return to society where they were still rich. These penalties are almost worthy of Gilbert and Sullivan,
****************************** **********

WE need a kinder version of Mao’s cultural revolution to flatten this classism in our country.

Here are some thoughts:

1. On a competitive basis, university education should be free,

2. Impoverishment should be made a punishment for crimes that cost others their wealth. If found guilty, youi would be allowed to retain no more than an amount of wealth that reflects your crime.

3.Enhanced Small Claims Court What if
we created an enhanced small claims court where the AG representing US could even the playing field a bit in civil matters? Such a court might even have the interesting ability to sue for damages from companies or individuals now protected by lout system. Presumably such damages could make that court self financing.

HorsesAss.Org » Blog Archive » I Second That Motion

HorsesAss.Org » Blog Archive » I Second That Motion: "7. Daddy Love spews:

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll:

75 percent of Americans support gays serving openly in the military. Even 64 percent of Republicans support this."

Here is the beginning of my post. And here is the rest of it.

HorsesAss.Org » Blog Archive » I Second That Motion

HorsesAss.Org » Blog Archive » I Second That Motion: "6. Daddy Love spews:

Here’s Marc Ambinder blogging at theAtlantic.com on Nouri al-Maliki’s historic statement of support for president Obama’s plan to withdraw American combat troops over 16 months…enjoy.

…This puts John McCain in an extremely precarious spot: what’s left to argue? To argue against Maliki would be to predicate that Iraqi sovereignty at this point means nothing. Obviously, our national interests aren’t equivalent to Iraq’s, but… Malik isn’t listening to the generals on the ground…but the “hasn’t been to Iraq” line doesn’t work here…(Via e-mail, a prominent Republican strategist who occasionally provides advice to the McCain campaign said, simply, “We’re fucked.”"

Here is the beginning of my post. And here is the rest of it.

BBC NEWS | Business | Unsafe chargers 'flooding' the UK

BBC NEWS | Business | Unsafe chargers 'flooding' the UK: "Unsafe chargers 'flooding' the UK
Charger
Unsafe chargers are about a third of the cost of safe alternatives

Hundreds of thousands of unsafe chargers for mobile phones, games consoles and music devices could have made their way into the UK.

Trading standards officers studying dangerous chargers being imported from China say vast numbers are available on the internet and in shops.

Their tests show one brand can overheat or cause electrocution.

One of the chargers concerned has the code marking DE62347066. Others have no code and are called Travel Charger."

Here is the beginning of my post. And here is the rest of it.

Man Arrested For Unlawful Photography | TriCities

By Darius Radzius
Reporter / WJHL
Published: July 11, 2008

Nearly everyone carries a cell phone and it’s hard to find one without that camera feature. It’s convenient when you want to take that impromptu photo, but a Tri-Cities area man ended up behind bars after snapping a shot of a Johnson County sheriff’s deputy during a traffic stop.

The cell phone photographer says the arrest was intimidation, but the deputy says he feared for his life.

“Here’s a guy who takes me out of the car and arrests me in front of my kids. For what? To take a picture of a police officer?” said Scott Conover.

A Johnson County sheriff’s deputy arrested Scott Conover for unlawful photography.

“He says you took a picture of me. It’s illegal to take a picture of a law enforcement officer,” said Conover.

Conover took a picture of a sheriff’s deputy on the side of the road on a traffic stop. Conover was stunned by the charge.

“This is a public highway,” said Conover.

And it was not a place where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy as Tennessee code states. The deputy also asked Conover to delete the picture three times.

“He said if you don’t give it to me, you’re going to jail,” said Conover.

Under the advice of the Johnson County attorney, the sheriff would not comment and the arresting deputy said he didn’t want to incriminate himself by talking to us.

In an affidavit, the deputy said he saw something black with a red light which he thought was a threat. Conover was also arrested for pointing a laser at a law enforcement officer.

“At no time did I have a laser. I had an iPhone,” said Conover.

When you take a picture in the dark with Conover’s Apple iPhone, there is no flash or any light that comes from the phone that could be mistaken for a laser.

In a witness statement by a Mountain City officer, is says the deputy asked about the picture rather than looking for a laser.

“If you arrested me, wouldn’t you take the laser? If you arrested me, wouldn’t you take the camera?” said Conover.

He expects these charges to be dismissed.

“This guy maliciously arrested me, charging me with phony charges that he don’t even understand himself,” Conover said.

The American Civil Liberties Union would not comment on Conover’s case without fully reviewing the allegations, but told us there is no law that prohibits anyone from taking photographs in public areas, even of police. Taking photos is protected by the First Amendment. Conover is ordered to appear in a Johnson County court on August 6th.

American Thinker Blog: Lebanese terrorist praises Zionists

American Thinker Blog: Lebanese terrorist praises Zionists: "July 18, 2008
Lebanese terrorist praises Zionists
Ed Lasky
Simple message: Israelis care about their people (dead or alive); Arab leaders do not. The Jerusalem Post reports:

'I'm jealous of the Zionists, who don't spare any effort to bring back captured soldiers or soldiers' bodies,' convicted killer Samir Kuntar, who was released Wednesday in Israel's prisoner swap with Hizbullah, told the group's Al Manar TV on Friday."

Niggers and "The N Word"

Media News and Opinion on The Huffington Post: "Elisabeth Hasselbeck Cries After Sparring With Whoopi Over The N-Word"

This is a very pain filled show. The AA members of he cast defended the use of the term Nigger by AA basically because, in theor view, they have the right to call themsleves whatever they want.

I call doggy diarhea on that one. The reason non-AA are asked NOT to use the N bomb is because it is offensive. The Black community uses the word in a number of ways but they are all tied to the derogatory use by whites. There is a sort of reverse racism in a Black person bragging that she is a nigger.

I have thought about this in terms of words my own folks onjects to .. Kike, Honkey, etc. It seems clear to me that my AA friends would be at least embarassed if I refered to my self as a Honkey.


Bottom line, for an AA to tell Honkeys that the Hnkey can't call the Black guy a Nigger, is racist!

Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post

PoliticsObama's Trip Marks First High-Profile Step Onto World Stage

• Quick Read |
• Comments
• | Barack Obama»

Israel Arrests 6 In Alleged Al Qaida Plot Targeting Bush

Political Radar: Obama Hits the Gym, With Multiple Repetitions

Political Radar: Obama Hits the Gym, With Multiple Repetitions: "ABC News' Sunlen Miller Reports: While Obama spent 91 minutes at a campaign event yesterday, the Illinois Senator spent a total of 188 minutes in the gym yesterday – making three separate stops to Chicago gyms over the course of one day.

GYM RAT...

The presumptive nominee started his Tuesday with a short morning work out at the gym of his friend and longtime aide Mike Signator’s apartment building."

Here is the beginning of my post. And here is the rest of it.

Ultimate Obamatoon

Art by Rick Meyerowitz

Turns out New Yorker Editor Supremo David Remnick was just kidding with last week's apparently racist-classist-sexist- ethnically-and-religiously-biased cover. It was all just a set-up, said the legendary political satirist, to what we at the New Yorker really think of the great Senator from Illinois.

Say hello to...Mr and Mrs. Baruch Obama!

DRUDGE REPORT 2008®

SWIMMING POOL: CHINA...

THE CREED OF THE U.S.M.C.

HorsesAss.Org » Blog Archive » Finding the right enemy: "“This Is My Rifle”

THIS IS MY RIFLE. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I master my life.

My rifle, without me is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will….

My rifle and myself know that what counts in this war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count.

We will hit…

My rifle is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weakness, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its sights, and its barrel. I will ever guard it against the ravages of weather and damage. I will keep my rifle clean and ready, even as I am clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will…

Before God I swear this creed. My rifle and myself are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life.

So be it, until there is no enemy, but Peace!

THE CREED OF THE U.S.M.C."

Letter to McCranium

Jim@McCranium.org

Dear Jim.


Not sure if you remember but we have met at DL in Seattle.

I have a problem that you may be able to help with. For reasons I do not understand, Lee Rosenberg has set out on a campaign of character assassination against me. He has even threatened to mount some sort of campaign to have my UW tenure removed.

He claims to have discussed this with you and that you share his feelings on this. That bothers me a great deal.

The specific issue has to do with Mr. Haq, At the time of his arrest , I was distressed by the effort at mass murder and wrote about my concerns that tolerance not extend to tolerance of bigotry.

FWIW, this was two years ago but somehow it has stuck in Lee's craw. Now he claims I have been on some sort of an effort to vilify the Tri Cities Muslim Center. He claims that I blamed them for Haq's actions. If you read the blog you will see this is simply far, far from the truth,

For what is worth (and you are welcome to read my blog) the blog never mentioned any specifics about Mr. Haq's education. I did talk and write about the issue of wahabiism and the fact that we should be concerned that wahabi ideas are being taught in the US . I provided links to a very good study of Muslim curricula at that time and to effort in the Muslim community to reform.

Lee equates this with an attack on the Tri Cities Muslim community. Frankly I know far to little about the community to make such an assertion. I do know is that Haq received a Muslim education there and his view of Islam led to a terrible decision. Obviously that should raise concerns about how Islam is taught in any school, not just the one Mr. Haq attended. I have written that I see this as a warning flag, hardly the sort of hate speech Lee Rosenberg is spreading.

FWIW, I have made similar comments about other sources of bigotry. I am, unfortunately aware, that the Roman catechism prior to John XXIII, did contain a lot of bigotry vs. the Jews. In my own childhood, students studying these horrid texts stoned me in retribution for the murder of their God. The Dutch Reform Church of South Africa, the WWII Japanese Shinto religion, and the Kach movement in my own people are more than enough examples of this sort of thing.

My bottom line is that I value my reputation of integrity. If you know of anything I have actually done that was wrong or anything lee is saying about my beliefs, I would appreciate constructive feedback.

SeattleJew.

Anyhow, Lee has for reasons I do not understand tried to paint this as bigotry on MY part.