In Memoriam

There are few people in Hollywood that I can honestly say have done nothing wrong, at least nothing that stands out in some glaring "Oh yea, there's that" fashion.

Sidney Pollack is one of those people. I'd never worked with him, either in front of or behind the camera, but I would have given an eye tooth for a chance to. An actor before Burt Lancaster suggested he direct, he was the consummate actor's director, understanding the craft of understatement as well as the actor's dilemma.

Too, his body of work as a director suggests he refused to make dumb choices. His Academy Award winning turn with "Out Of Africa" only highlighted his remarkable gift for even more realistic, humanistic movies like "Tootsie" or "The Way We Were."

In the hands of a lesser director, a drama that improbably casts Barbra Streisand as a romantic lead across from Robert Redford could easily have devolved into treacle at best and farce at worst, something on the order of "Shanghai Surprise" with Sean Penn and Madonna. Pollack's gift was in tearing away the facade of stardom in his casts to get the actors to act.

If this was all he had ever done, this body of work, mainly with Robert Redford, it would immediately install him in the pantheon of gods of Hollywood, but his acting abilities rivalled his eye and ear for storytelling.

As an example, rent "Michael Clayton," an intriguing story of a burnt-out lawyer who runs up against some powerful forces allied against him. The three major roles in the film all garnered Oscar nominations, and the two supporting actors, Tilda Swinton and Tom Wilkinson, won.

Pollack, playing Marty Bach, the head of the law firm, has one of the most interesting roles in film's recent memory, trying to juggle an out-of-control lawyer who has lost his mind, a "fixer" who is starting to realize that he's on the wrong side, and a merger of his firm with another.

His performance is, to be sure, nothing less than astounding, and yet, never mentioned when this film is talked about, the garish larger roles capturing the notices.

I think that's exactly the way Sid liked it.

I'm sorry to see you go, Sidney. You will be missed.

Cradle Of Life, Catching Fire

While you've been reading about this scuba diver getting lost at sea, or that skydiver missing his balloon, or this or that Presidential candidate making his forays into actual debate on an issue, a billion people are facing outright war.

Item 1 - Guinea soldiers seize chief over pay dispute:

The troops, who say they have been owed money for up to 12 years and protested over the same issue last year, also fired shots into the air.

The protests come the week after President Lansana Conte sacked Lansana Kouyate as prime minister.

(emphasis added)

Item 2 - Pipeline blown up in Niger delta:

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) group said in an email that it had attacked the Royal Dutch Shell pipeline in Rivers State.

The militants, who want a greater share of oil revenues for the area, said they blew up a flow station and were retreating when soldiers opened fire.

Item 3 - Mozambicans flee South Africa riots:

Mozambique's government says about 20,000 of its citizens have fled South Africa because of the wave of attacks on foreigners in the past two weeks.

In South Africa, at least 50 people have died and a further 35,000 have sought shelter because of the attacks.

In a related item...

Item 4 - Death toll climbs in South African violence:

South Africa has given fresh figures on the numbers of people killed and displaced by the wave of attacks on foreigners over the past two weeks.

Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula told the BBC 56 people had been killed and more than 650 injured. Previously, 50 deaths were reported.

More than 30,000 had been displaced or forced from their homes, he said.

Other organisations said this was a gross under-estimation and that at least 80,000 had been displaced.

According to South Africa's Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR), as many as 100,000 Africans may have been driven from their houses.

...which is related to this item...

Item 5 - Tsvangirai confident of victory:

The Movement for Democratic Change leader accused the ruling Zanu-PF party of seeking to "decimate" opposition structures ahead of the vote.

His first engagement was to visit supporters hurt in political violence.

Mr Tsvangirai's return was delayed amid an alleged army plot to kill him, which the ruling party said was "fantasy".

Just imagine if Al Gore had to flee to Mexico in 2000, to get a sense of what this story means in Southern Africa. Or for a real world example, all you have to do is contemplate the asassination of Benazir Bhutto.

Item 6 - South Sudan on the brink of war:

Clashes in Sudan's oil-rich town of Abyei could pitch the north and south of the country into civil war again, a senior official from South Sudan says.

"We are on the brink of war," Pagan Amum, secretary general of the former rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), told the BBC.

Up to 90,000 people have fled after a week of fighting and the disputed town is now controlled by northern soldiers.

You may better know South Sudan as Darfur...

Item 7 - ANC calls to retake the streets:

The secretary general of South Africa's governing ANC has called on party members to form local committees to combat violence against foreigners.

Gwede Mantashe says that they should work to "take the streets back from criminals", whilst giving support to the police and help to the victims.

The unrest has now spread to Cape Town, with people assaulted and shops looted.

It is roughly a thousand miles from the Zimbabwean border, the source of all these refugees that are creating such a ruckus, to Cape Town, so imagine if riots over Cuban immigrants in Miami spread all up the East Coast to Washington, DC! And the ANC is effectively claiming the South Africa government, which has been curiously quiet through it all, is inadequate for calming the population down and is suggesting vigilante actions may be necessary.

Had enough? You are free to go back to debating the merits of the two Davids from American Idol. This has been your moment of waarheid

Friday Kitten Blogging

PEEPZ!

I still nawt gawt dis hole "Daylite Sabings Tiem" fing down...stooped hoomens! Why you take a hour off wun end ob da day and steck et on da udder????

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) The big note for this weekend, after you've seen the new Indiana Jones movie, there will be a new Mars rover landing on Sunday night...and you can watch live on the Science Channel.

2) NOAA has made its predictions about the hurricane season and they are not good. However, there was a similarly pessimistic forecast last year and we ducked many bullets. You might recall, however, the Pacific was inundated with cyclones.

3) Given the number of tornadoes this year already, as well as some of the bizarre places they have popped up, I'd have to say it's already been a tough weather year.

4) Oh....speaking of Indiana Jones...the movie is worth the price of admission, just don't get your hopes up about it. After all, you've found the Ark of the Covenant AND the Holy Grail, what can you possibly do for an encore that's going to bring the same level of tension and excitement? Answer is, not much, so you slap in some silly plot around a couple of really good car chases. Russians, don't worry about missing it, much

5) Not gonna happen. I'm not sure why this keeps getting kicked around. The Big Dog might be sending up a flare to try to keep her lieutenants in line.

6) This, I think, is the first of many backlashes against well-intended laws that go too far. While it's clear that many of the children in this sect have been sexually abused, the sweeping separations of the original child authority was probably out of line.

7) Still, it's a stupid-but-creepy story.

8) You haven't heard about this story. Why? The Zimbabwean election controversy is spilling over into one of the few stable democracies in Africa, threatening to incite at the very least a regional conflict intense enough that the South African government has had to call in troops, yet you knew all about the Texas sect.

9) Somebody came to their senses, at least, but too late for how many thousands of people?

10) Yea, I can't see any problem with this...*snark*

In A Twin Killing Of An Eye

Overnight, oil prices jumped more than $5 a barrel.

They had been heading upwards, inexorably, all year, with one or two hitches in the road. This past week, however, has seen it rapidly soar past $130 a barrel.

Conventional wisdom on Monday pointed to such obvious things as the heated rhetoric in the American political campaign, the situation in Africa, a jump in demand from Asia, the summer driving season, all of which together could explain a spike like that.

Or...as some of us guessed, there was a bigger story in play:

Oil prices leaped above $135 in overnight trading on Thursday, a new record that underscored the growing pressures that runaway energy prices are placing on some of the biggest names in global industry.

By midday Thursday, oil had fallen back and was trading at $131.95, down $1.22 from Wednesday’s close. But in a week that has seen the oil price rise by $4, the economic consequences of high fuel costs continued to mount.

[...]Thursday’s gains came after a series of unsettling reports that suggested world oil supplies may not be able to keep up with future demand, a situation that could potentially lead to even higher prices.

On Wednesday, weaker-than-expected weekly inventory data in the United States stoked fresh worries over oil supplies in the world’s biggest economy ahead of the busy summer driving season, sending oil prices up $4.19 a barrel on the day.

Some investors reacted to a report on Thursday in The Wall Street Journal that the International Energy Agency, an Paris-based policy advisory group for industrialized countries, was concerned about a reduction in the long-term world supply of crude oil.

The IEA has usually used the reports of the individual nations of OPEC and other oil producers to estimate world oil supplies.

Needless to say, nearly every nation inflates their reserves. The report, therefore, is clearly unreliable.

Indeed, in this month's National Geographic Magazine comes a report about a renegade industry analyst in Saudi Arabia who's estimates indicate that, not only has Saudi Arabia passed peak oil, but that its reserves are draining faster than anticipated.

Many skeptics point to several reserves of oil that are a litle harder to get to, but now that oil prices have climbed, are cost-effective.

However, when we've seen oil prices spike in the past, they have been accompanied by fervent & frenzied attempts to find more oil, discoveries of which have provided smaller and smaller finds. Indeed, the price drop of the 80s and 90s in crude prices was due in large part to the discovery of oil to tap into.

In this current spike, there has been zero, nada, nil, increased effort to find new oil sources. For example, Exxon Mobil, while increasing the exploration budget over 20% this year, still spends more on maintaining existing oil wells than it does on exploration, and their goal is to increase oil production by 2010 by a measly 725,000 barrels a year, and that 20% increase barely makes up for the past eight years of sitting on a budget line item like they were drowning it in the bathtub, as prices steadily inched, then rocketed, upwards.

I predicted earlier this year that once oil hit $130 a barrel, we could expect to see $5 a gallon gasoline.

I was wrong, but I had not anticipated that it would take weeks rather than months to reach that level, and expected that interim oil prices would be absorbed into the price structure. However, I can report that here in NYC, premium gas is bumping andexceeding $4.50 a gallon already.

OK, so that's the good news.

Here's the scary part:

[In 2005, the IEA] said that if investments didn’t keep pace with the growth in consumption, the world might face a shortfall of as much as 15 million barrels a day by 2030. Instead of growing to reach 116 million barrels a day, global supplies would struggle to increase to 100 million barrels a day by then, up from today’s average of 86 million barrels day.

Contrast that with this (from NatGeo):

Last fall, after the International Energy Agency released a forecast showing global oil demand rising more than a third by 2030, to 116 million barrels a day, several oil-company executives voiced doubts that production could ever keep pace. Speaking to an industry conference in London, Christophe de Margerie, head of the French oil giant Total, flatly declared that the "optimistic case" for maximum daily output was 100 million barrels—meaning global demand could outstrip supply before 2020. And in January, Royal Dutch Shell's CEO, Jeroen van der Veer, estimated that "after 2015 supplies of easy-to-access oil and gas will no longer keep up with demand."

That is, within the next ten years, we will literally and effectively be running out of oil.

Get used to it, folks. This is going to hurt. A lot. And in ways you can't even begin to expect.

Life After Ted

It seems weird to think of Ted Kennedy as mortal, and yet, he is:

BOSTON, Massachusetts (CNN) -- U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, was released from the hospital Wednesday morning, earlier than expected.

When doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital announced Tuesday that the 76-year-old Democrat was suffering from a brain tumor, the news was met with expressions of sadness and support from his Senate colleagues.

Kennedy's physicians said they would consult with him to determine the best course of treatment.

Kennedy is one of only six senators in U.S. history to serve more than 40 years. He is an iconic liberal champion of social issues such as health care, family leave and the minimum wage.

Ironically, he's probably done more for the poor and disenfranchised in this country than any other Kennedy, certainly more in his forty year Senate career than he would have had he won an election for President.

Fate, as Al Gore can tell you, sometimes forces your hand.

The subtext to today's story, that EMK has been released from Mass General Hospital earlier than expected, along with little clues dropped in the news coverage from other sources (Nancy Snyderman, the medical consultant to the Today Show, this morning all but declared Kennedy as dying), leads me to suspect the tumor is a lot further along than we'd be led to believe. Malignant gliomae are cells that reproduce quickly and are very aggressive.

And brain cancer doesn't necessarily have to be the origination of the cancer infestation. One can develop, say, prostate cancer and have it spread along the spinal cord to the brain, triggering this kind of tumor.

It is always fatal. They speak in terms of two to five years horizons. Arlen Specter, who also had this form of cancer, has managed to survive past the five period, but that might be the exception to the rule.

The last liberal in Congress, unless you want to talk about Bernie Sanders, who will replace this lion as the face of progressive politics?

It seems a damned shame now that Barack Obama is running for President, since clearly he could have the kind of impact Kennedy has had, over a far longer term, rather than hit-and-run some policies that will have zero effect once the next President after him is seated. He coulda been a contendah.

There's a pitifully short list of liberals in Congress. Even the people we believed could hold that lamp high, the Barbara Boxers, the Dianne Feinsteins, the Hillary Clintons, the Barack Obamas, have all demonstrated that power means more to them than principle.

Too, it says a lot about the make up of the American electorate that there is no real progressive liberal movement, especially when you contemplate what the liberal movement has meant to the average American (read the top of my blog: "Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act.")

Something to keep in mind for this year's election, one that *should* be a slam dunk for Democrats, but one that we simply cannot take for granted.

I think about the names of the Senators in Congress now...obviously my bias is for the Northeast...like Schumer and Menendez, Dodd and Lautenberg, Clinton and Collins...and I'm not seeing anyone who can replace Ted, at least not in the precious short time it appears we have him around.

This might be the death of liberalism for the foreseeable future. We should mourn.

Well, This Is Just Stupid...

I can't say I really support either of them in this dust-up, but I'd lean towards Obama's position:

CHICAGO — Senator John McCain put Senator Barack Obama on the foreign policy defensive once again Monday, criticizing him here in his hometown for saying Iran did not pose the serious threat to the United States that the Soviet Union once did.

Mr. Obama’s willingness to engage with adversaries like Iran was a source of disagreement between himself and his Democratic opponent, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, early in the presidential primary campaign. Now it is quickly emerging as a central issue in his likely general election showdown with Mr. McCain

It is true that Obama compared the Soviet threat to the Iranian threat and found it woefully small, and he is correct about that: Iran does not have the ability to wipe America off the face of the world, where as the Soviet Union did. Point to Obama.

However...

The attack by Mr. McCain was prompted by comments Mr. Obama made on Sunday in Pendleton, Ore., where he urged engagement of the nation’s foes and said that “strong countries and strong presidents talk to their adversaries.”

“That’s what Reagan did with Gorbachev,” he said, adding: “I mean, think about it. Iran, Cuba, Venezuela — these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don’t pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying, ‘We’re going to wipe you off the planet.’ ”

And Obama went onto say how Kennedy and Reagan both spoke to the Soviet Union despite the adversarial relationship.

True. To a point. Those high-level talks were preceded by months if not years of lower level talks aimed at setting the terms and conditions of any discussions at the summits.

Obama has, emphatically and repeatedly, said he would hold no preconditions over any discussions with any nation.

In this regard, McCain's charge of "betray[ing] the depth of Senator Obama’s inexperience and reckless judgment" holds some truth to it.

After all, wasn't it just a few years ago that our esteemed President, Dumbya, looked into Vladimir "Pootie Poot" Putin's eyes and declared "I was able to get a sense of his soul". A few years later, it turns out, not so much.

While I doubt Senator Obama is as bad a judge of character as Dumbya, I have to say that neither is he as GOOD a judge of character as John Kennedy, or even Ronald Reagan. After all, the Wright incident speaks volumes to this loony's inability to even stop listening to a crackpot.

But that brings us back to McCain, who is just flat out wrong when he inflated the threat Iran poses to Americans. Iran poses about the same credible threat to America as North Korea, a country we might be reminded is in talks with the Bush administration as this idiotic scene unfolds.

Yes, it's true, Iran is a state-sponsor of terrorism, and is one of the main forces attacking Americans in Iraq. But Iraq is a place no American should even BE in, in the first place, so it's silly to call Iran a "grave threat". That's like calling the tiger in the cage you've just fallen into, "dangerous", when you had no business being in there in the first place: you make an idiotic mistake, you ought to understand there are consequences to those errors.

Pot To Kettle: You're Black!

President Bush is in the Middle East to press Arab leaders to moderate their cultures: create economic reforms, increase opportunities for women, and embrace democracy.

Yea. Um. Hullo?:

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt — After a showy celebration of America’s close ties with Israel, President Bush was expected to present Arab leaders with a lengthy to-do list on Sunday, telling them that if Middle East peace is to become a reality, they must expand their economies, offer equal opportunity to women and embrace democracy.

Mr. Bush’s three-day stay in Jerusalem last week has drawn criticism from Arab leaders, including the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia, who say he has been insensitive to the plight of Palestinians. He came to this Red Sea resort city to try to soften that impression and reassure regional leaders he is committed to their cause.

But in prepared remarks released ahead of a Sunday afternoon appearance at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East, a gathering of world leaders, diplomats and business executives, Mr. Bush seemed to chide as much as reassure.

“Too often in the Middle East, politics has consisted of one leader in power and the opposition in jail,” Mr. Bush said in the address, adding, “The time has come for nations across the Middle East to abandon these practices, and treat their people with the dignity and respect they deserve.”

Now, granted, neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton is in any danger of being thrown in the hoosegow...altho the Rezko trial ain't over yet...but to say others must embrace democracy as we erode it away is a little like starting a land war in South Asia: idiotic.

The liberties we've given up, quietly, with little fanfare, are astounding. You can't travel anyplace out of the country without first being vetted. You can't open a bank account without proving every detail about your life, right down to your utility bill. You can't rent a movie or borrow a book from a library without some flunky at the DHS glancing at your activity.

You can't make a telephone call, cell or landline, without popping up on a list and god help you if that call is to a Muslim nation!

This is a democracy only in form and even there, with the imminent threat of stolen elections dangling over our heads, perhaps "name only" is a better way of putting it!

Similarly, "economic reforms" for Arab countries is code for "share the wealth". Emirs and sheiks control the lion's share of revenues flowing into nations from Saudi Arabia to Qatar.

For America, which now sees the largest single inequity in personal income since at least the Great Depression, to chide any other nation about its income structure is absurd, particularly as we worked hard these past seven years to institute a formal recognition that, indeed, the rich really DO get richer, off the backs of the working classes in this nation who create that wealth.

You know... Clinton voters.

A true acknowledgment of this terrible situation would see Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee, sweeping to election in November. Clearly, the middle classes are terrified of this. After all, the middle class relies deeply on the rich to create the cushy middle management jobs upon which they rely on to work without getting their hands calloused and dirty. We survive and subsist on the scraps of the rich, but those scraps are just big enough to keep us complacent.

Nevermind that job security and company loyalty no longer work both ways.

And yes, let's focus on Bush's other point for a second: women.

It's great to see a woman actually contend for the highest office in the land and arguably the most powerful job in the world.

It's highly symbolic, at the same breath. Look at how many Obombers and McCainistas claim she got there by dint of her husband.

Neither Obama nor McCain has exactly made it on their own either. Cindy McCain was independently wealthy, freeing John to be a politico, and Michelle Obama appears to have a fair amount of money in her own right, seeing as all these shady real estate deals were done in her name only.

That would be an interesting sidelight to an Obama administration: can the First Lady be imprisoned?

And it is this perception, that a woman somehow need a magical "leg up" while men do not, despite the fact that the old boy's network has been up and running for hundreds of years in America, must change. It is this segregated thinking that marginalizes women...and yes, minorities, too. And while it's not as pervasive as blatant discrimination can be, it is nonetheless insidious and affective.

So, Dumbya? Clean your own house first before you go around talking about the trash in other people's kitchens.

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) Edwards endorsing Obama is little more than a step up from an endorsement by Justin Timberlake. If Edwards was relelvant, he'd have more than 19 delegates.

2) Reason #412 to own a Mac.

3) Nearly 125,000 dead in Asia this week alone.

4) Yet this irrelevant jackass is getting the full brunt of the front pages of America???

5) That said, I believe the "appeasement" flap was political cover for John McCain.

6) I suppose it depends on what your definition of "victory" is, eh, Senator?

7) That said, I think this might not be a smart move on Obama's part. There's an old saying in politics that, when your opponent is beating himself, don't give him a hand up.

8) Maybe there's some backbone in the Senate yet?

9) Or maybe not. What annoys me most about the farm bill is that the subsidies that either party, including the President, has proposed are the wrong ones. There's no reason for corn subsidies in this age of skyrocketing corn prices.

10) Obama could lead the way against the subsidy bill, but...as always, HE DUCKED THE VOTE!

11) Oops! And summer driving season begins in earnest next Friday!

12) Can I have this guy's job? Please?

Appease Porridge Hot, Appease Porridge Cold

Not sure I understand Bush's point here:

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush on Thursday decried his critics' calls for negotiations with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as comparable to the appeasement of Adolf Hitler before World War Two.

Bush's comment in a speech to Israel's parliament appeared to be a swipe at Democratic presidential frontrunner Barack Obama, who has advocated meeting leaders of traditional U.S. foes such as Iran and Cuba without preconditions.

It also followed a visit to the Middle East by former President Jimmy Carter in which he met Hamas leaders, who are shunned by Israel and Washingtion, and urged efforts to draw the militant group into the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

[...]Bush, who has refused any contact with Ahmadinejad, said the Iranian president "dreams of returning the Middle East to the Middle Ages and calls for Israel to be wiped off the map", and lumped him together in an anti-Israel camp with Hamas, Hezbollah and Osama bin Laden.

"Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before," Bush said.=

I'm not sure I've heard Obama say that, necessarily, or anyone on the left. I know I don't think that's a good idea, either.

But....

What IS a good idea is what President Bill Clinton...you remember the guy, brightest President to sit in the White House since Jefferson, greatest President of all time, husband of candidate Hillary Clinton and someone Barack Obama has gone out of his way to paint with strokes of hatred and jealousy?...did during his tenure: reach out to Iranians moderates and try to establish a dialogue regarding what THEY want.

It's true, Ahmadinejad would probably leap at the chance to have face time with a President Obama, but it's not very likely that would amount to anything, unless it was preceded by many rounds of talks among lower level operatives and with opposition leaders in Iran, such as they are.

Remember, despite Ahmadinejad's posturing, Iran is a fairly moderate country with an educated population, a decent economy, and more important, some freedoms that other Muslim nations do not have.

To suggest that even the rookie Senator from Illinois would be foolhardy enough to justify Ahmadinejad's posturing in the face of that populace belies a deep disregard for the intellectual curiousity of both Iranians and Americans: we'd see through that in a heartbeat. Look what happened when Ahmadinejad spoke at Columbia.

The comparisons to Nazi Germany are a bit outre as well. Germany was controlled by Hitler. Ahmadinejad can't take a dump without the religious council ratifying it. And there's where the talking with Iran might bear some fruit. Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Rafsanjani, pragmatic reformers who have some sway with the council would be valuable players here.

Bush, thankfully, has rendered himself irrelevant prematurely. My suspicion is, someone in his administration watched "The West Wing" and tried to arrange a graceful exit for him like Jeb Bartlett's, and creating relevancy for the lamest of ducks in recent memory.

"In Convention"al Wisdom

Curious thing about this story: Why didn't Obama win this state?

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton arranged to meet with uncommitted superdelegates on Wednesday following her lopsided win in the West Virginia primary, as her supporters argued that her appeal to some traditional Democratic voting blocks may change some opinions despite the continued long odds that she can secure her party’s nomination.

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, a supporter of Mrs. Clinton, said “superdelegates have to have second thoughts” after West Virginia, speaking in an interview Wednesday morning on CNN.

Conventional wisdom said that Hillary Clinton should have mopped the floor with Obama and given the nature of the electorate in West Virginia, I concur. She should also wipe the floors of Kentucky with Obama.

But....

Conventional wisdom, for some reason, begs the most obvious question: Why?

Obama has the nomination all but sewed up, according to every single pundit who can't see past the hors d'oeurve table at Obama headquarters.

Obama has an insurmountable lead in pledged delegates and a slim lead in superdelegates.

It's all over but the shouting, I mean. Right?

Except here's Obama losing by 40 points! to Hillary Clinton, a woman whom everyone is saying is done for, finished, finito, kaput.

If it's really all over, why didn't West Virginia send a message to Clinton: "Get out."

If it's really all over, why didn't Obama use that as a theme to put up even a modest campaign in West Virginia, one that he could claim was "healing the wounds" he has helped create in the Democratic party? After all, wouldn't beating Senator Clinton in a state that was, to quote Bill Richardson, "tailor-made" for her be a sign to her that even her supporters thought she was done? Enough?

Was West Virginia not "good enough" for this effort, Senator Obama?

Aren't the "typical white voters" you poo-poo worth the effort to persuade to your coalition? Or have Reverend Wright's words sunk deeply into your mind and worse, your heart, Senator?

The overriding issue here is, if this election is over, then why isn't it over? Why hasn't Obama dealt the Clinton campaign the humiliating defeat that should have been dealt by now to a campaign struggling to stay afloat?

Michigan Will Vote

In what is the clearest acknowledgement by Barack Obama of his deep troubles in the general election, the Senator has begun actively campaigning in a state that he has stridently sought to disenfranchise:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama will visit Michigan on Wednesday -- his first visit to the state since last July.

The Obama campaign announced today that the Illinois senator will make two stops, in Macomb County and in Grand Rapids. More details on the trip are expected later today.

Obama has refrained from campaigning in Michigan because of a dispute over Michigan's Jan. 15 primary, which violated Democratic Party laws. He also removed his name from the ballot for the primary.

In other words, Obama caved in on his promise because he's about to get a mud hole stomped in his campaign tomorrow in West Virginia and he has to make some inroads in the "bitter white vote".

Obama has also announced campaign swings through Florida.

Now, granted, he's all but sewed up the nomination and really has no choice but to start mending fences, but I wonder how he's going to handle the enormous heat regarding his vehement opposition to seating any delegation to the convention floor in these states?

"Sorry, I don't think we need more bitter white folks in the Democratic party"? "Um, well, you people don't count"? "I wanted to seat you before I didn't want to"?

A preview of the rules fight on the convention floor, headed by Clinton capaign strategist (and the guy who wrote those rules) Harold Ickes was unveiled over the weekend:

The campaign "certainly might" accept a compromise that seats half the states' delegates, based on their disputed January primaries, said Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe. A former chair of the Democratic National Committee, McAuliffe made the case that the DNC should only have penalized the states half their delegations, as Republicans did when Michigan and Florida violated both parties' rules on scheduling primaries.

"The rule is 50 percent," McAuliffe said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "Had they done that, we wouldn't be having this discussion."

Another Clinton aide, chief spokesman Howard Wolfson, repeated on Sunday the campaign's new position that clinching the nomination requires 2,209 delegates -- the total including Michigan and Florida. The party and the Obama campaign set the magic number at 2,025, excluding the two disputed states.

A number Obama cannot possibly achieve, even if he wipes up the superdelegate map going forward.

Meaning the vote would go to a second round, and Clinton makes her case in front of the convention about how Obama's early victories needed to be revisited anyway, given the revelations of his blatant elitism and anti-patriotism towards the base of the party that skewed to the right to take back the House and Senate in 2006.

It's a long shot, to be sure, but I'm always reminded of Al Gore in 2000 and how angry all of us got at him for not fighting it until the bitter end, caving in simply because it was "the right thing to do."

He was wrong, and so would Hillary be if she dropped out.

At The Intersection Of Hopes And Success

The single greatest challenge in solving world poverty is getting cheap electricity to communities that are far off the grid, who are not fortunate enough to live in a society where the government will subsidize the extension of the grid to these communities, often hundreds of miles from civilization.

See, conservatives? Big government gets the job done!

Here, however, is an amazingly simple yet practical solution for at least some of the world's poor:

Unleash the Power For the People Foundation is a charitable organization that raises money for the purpose of enabling people to help those that are truly impoverished in the world. Channeling the power of people to provide power for people.

Corp-speak for "We'll help poor people generate their own electricity, which will drive machines which will provide a living, which will help lift them out of poverty."

Portable solar panels with DC/AC transformers built-on, windmills, and other renewable energy sources will be provided to communities (the rough nut to provide is about $20,000 per every 50 people in a community, so we're talking lunch money for the Iraq invasion forces for one day to provide millions of people with free energy). The primary goal will be to bring fresh drinking water to these communities: these power sources will drive pumps and desalinization plants.

America is fairly unique in that the richest among us live nearest the shore. This is not the case in less developed nations.

With water comes sanitation, cleaner food, fresher food, better health. As the community strengthens, excess capacity (and there will be plenty) can be diverted to wiring for lighting, computers, and other machinery that will allow the citizens access to information and markets.

With renewable energy comes a cleaner environment, less carbon release, healthier people who live longer and are more productive and able to provide for themselves and their families.

But there's a deeper issue here, one that can be extended to even a nation as powerful and wealthy as America: distributive power generation.

The fatal flaw in the US grid is, unlike the Internet, electricity is interdependent on every other node in the grid: if one goes, likely many will go before the drainage can stop, and it requires hands-on rejiggering to reroute around a trouble spot.

Think of a big city traffic jam: that's the model the electrical grid works on.

By pushing power generation down to the community level, you're giving local populations an option: generate as much power as you can, and take from the grid what you need beyond that. Should your generator go down, the grid is your backup.

Should the grid go down, all you need to do is to power down nonessential uses until it comes back up.

Too, you'd be cutting the costs of electrical generation substantially, as well as providing jobs as diverse as wiring to the new generator (and maintaining that wiring locally) to economic development of this new resource.

Who said going green would kill the American economy? If anything, it brings money back to the people.

Which brings us back to unleashpowerforthepeople.org.

One thing poor people around the world have in common is a lack of access to power, and by that I mean, political. It's easy to overlook people who have no voice, who cannot contact the people who nominally represent them. By providing them with electrical power, you provide them with a voice, an economy, and a say in what directly affects them.

Look at Myanmar, for example. Even before the cyclone, we heard stories about the terrible regime there, Aung San Suu Kyi's imprisonment, the Buddhist uprising.

Why? Because there was access to the rest of the world, through the media and the Internet.

Imagine how much faster the world could have responded to Darfur if this program had been in place when the crisis was just beginning? Imagine if images of the Janjaweed's rapes and murders had been posted by someone with a videocamera (provided by Peter Gabriel's charity, Witness) had documented and uploaded video in real time?

Imagine. Just imagine. And all that, just from a few solar panels or wind turbines...

Well, This Is Ugly!

I guess you can add this to the Big Shitpile, as my buddy Blogenfreude likes to call it:

US banking giant Citigroup has said it wants to sell $400bn (£205bn) of assets over the next three years as part of its bid to return to profit.

It has $500bn of "legacy assets" that it wants to reduce to $100bn.

(ed. note: term of art: "legacy assets" = bad loans and investments)

For the largest bank in America, if not the world, to write off $400 billion dollars (roughly the GDP of Indonesia) is a serious blow to any "economic stimulus" the Fed rate cuts have provided. To make up for this slashing, Citigroup will likely have to cut jobs, raise fees and find new sources of income (read that as: dip deeper into your pocket). Particularly in light of the fact they've lost $15 billion in the last six months, and probably will post a loss for the second quarter again (even allowing for this announcement), this does not bode well for the American economy.

We need only look to Japan in the late 80s and early 90s for a lesson in this scenario: overvalued real estate creating speculative purchases creating a banking crisis (Shinsei Bank, I should disclose, is a holding of mine through a private equity venture, and is only getting back on its feet now) creating economic stagnation despite an equivalent prime lending rate of zero percent.

When your government is practically *giving* you money and your economy can't stir itself, that's a deep, deep depression.

A trailing economic indicator of any recession is the stock market indices. In Japan's case, a recession that began in 1989 didn't bottom out in the Nikkei until 2003.

Keep that in mind, since economists and Republicans tout the S&P 500 or the Dow as a marvel of the American economic engine.

Will we be hit as bad as this? Probably not. The American economy is more globally oriented today than the Japanese economy was in the 90s, altho the Japanese had strengths that America never really implemented (the keiretsu), and the real estate bubble doesn't seem to have affected commercial real estate here, as it did in Japan.

But make no mistake: the warning signs from Japan should be heeded.

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) One should never piss off the aides of a former President, even a fictional one. Maybe even particularly a fictional one!

2) If the rationale presented is legitimate, then I have found the first thing I can agree with Dumbya on, in principle. At a time of soaring food costs, farm subsidies make little sense anymore, in general (I'm sure I haven't thought this through enough to be more specific).

3) I can break both the food crisis and the energy crisis in one fell swoop: ban corn syrup additives. If you look at any food label now, chances are in lieu of sugar (which is not produced domestically but in Hawaii and a few other limited locales) you'll find corn syrup. By banning corn syrup, you'd reinforce the Hawaiian economy, plus free up enormous amounts of American corn for food and ethanol.

4) It does appear the deck is stacked against Hillary. That said, she should not and will not give up the fight until Denver.

5) But I suppose I should be nicer to Obama, even if he is a conniving blaggard with a heart of stone. What say you all?

6) He did, however, come well short of endorsing Obama. My suspicion is, if Obama hadn't betrayed a deep hatred of the working class, Edwards would have endorsed him before Tuesday's primary in NC.

7) Probably sucks.

8) Definitely sucks.

9) Uh oh..."quarantine" is never a word you want to read in a headline.

10) If $120 a barrel was about the breaking point for $4 a gallon gaasoline, what's the increment to $5 a gallon? Strictly on a guess, I'll go with $130/bbl

11) This volcano in Chile might be more devastating than anyone suspected.

12) Blowing up a forest is probably a dumb way to call attention to an ecological crisis. Just a thought.

Turning Up The Heat

It's not like this was either unexpected or unfair:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Hillary Clinton supporter Harvey Weinstein threatened to cut off contributions to congressional Democrats unless House Speaker Nancy Pelosi embraced his plan to finance revotes in Florida and Michigan, three officials familiar with their conversation said.

'Nuff said.

If the Democrats have any chance of winning in November, irrespective of who is the nominee, then Florida and Michigan have to be allowed to have their say in the nominating process or precious votes will peel away.

Period.

The history of the primary shuffle that created this mess is one that sees the direct involvement (in Florida) of the Republican-led legislature, who moved the Florida primary up knowing full well the rules of the DNC stated that Iowa and New Hampshire were entitled to first votes.

Knowing full well the Democratic National Committee would have to invalidate any primary held, and unseat any delegation chosen, the Republicans could then run ads in this crucial state, reminding voters there how little the Democrats care for Florida's concerns.

And they'd be right. And it would be hard for any candidate to argue against that, and would require enormous amounts of time and money, both of which will be in short supply come the fall.

Michigan is a slightly different case, since it was the Democratic party, along with a Democratic governor, but a split legislature. Here, the party proposed the move, and took it to State Supreme Court, in an effort to enhance Michigan's role in the primary process.

Granholm, it should be noted, has endorsed Obama, who's campaign has worked hard behind the scenes to deprive 25,000,000 Americans the right to vote for a Democratic candidate for President in this critical election.

That's less than one percent of the American population. It makes you wonder what they're so terrified of. But I digress...

There are myriad reasons for either doing a revote or allowing the current primary results to stand, and not one single legitimate reason for denying the vote to these two critical states to the economic and political future of the nation.

Weinstein recognizes this and is offering to privately finance the elections (with some small help). While Obama and to a lesser extent, Clinton have raked in gobs of cash, the DNC is actually running behind its previous contribution levels (probably a result of Obama's fund raising drying up the well...there's talk he's negotiated a fundsharing deal with Dean).

Weinstein's solution is the best possible one out there: re-run the primaries (since that would place them well behind the February 5 deadline), and allow those results to stand.

What is Obama so scared of?

The Scandal That Wouldn't Die

You wonder how much more of this story will pop up in the general, should Obama finally secure his victory:

For any spiritually minded, up-wardly mobile African-American living in Chicago in the mid-1980s, the Trinity United Church of Christ was—and still is—the place to be. That's what drew Oprah Winfrey, a recent Chicago transplant, to the church in 1984. She was eager to bond with the movers and shakers in her new hometown's black community. But she also admired Trinity United's ambitious outreach work with the poor, and she took pride in upholding her Southern grandmother's legacy of involvement with traditional African-American houses of worship. Winfrey was a member of Trinity United from 1984 to 1986, and she continued to attend off and on into the early to the mid-1990s. But then she stopped. A major reason—but by no means the only reason—was the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

According to two sources, Winfrey was never comfortable with the tone of Wright's more incendiary sermons, which she knew had the power to damage her standing as America's favorite daytime talk-show host. "Oprah is a businesswoman, first and foremost," said one longtime friend, who requested anonymity when discussing Winfrey's personal sentiments. "She's always been aware that her audience is very mainstream, and doing anything to offend them just wouldn't be smart. She's been around black churches all her life, so Reverend Wright's anger-filled message didn't surprise her. But it just wasn't what she was looking for in a church." Oprah's decision to distance herself came as a surprise to Wright, who told Christianity Today in 2002 that when he would "run into her socially … she would say, 'Here's my pastor!' " (Winfrey declined to comment. A Harpo Productions spokesperson would not confirm her reasons for leaving the church.)

Now, Oprah's reasons might indeed have nothing to do with Wright, this is true.

But doesn't this put a pin in the story of Obama's "Oh, I never heard him say anything untoward!" lame dismissal?

See, this is what I don't understand: I've attended services at any number of black churches, for any number of different occasions: weddings, funerals, Sunday service, major holidays like Easter and even one or two standard services.

I've heard some of the fire and brimstone speechifying. And I've even heard some parts that made me, a typical white person, cling tightly to my religion and guns, frustrating me and making me feel a bit bitter for being white.

And I'm not a regular attendee of a large black congregation, so how in the world did Obama miss some of Wright's more...colorful...sermons?

Did he maybe sleep through them? Not likely. It's hard to sleep in a black church. Pastors usually don't drone on.

Now, it's likely true that Obama, who came to the church as an agnostic/lapsed Baptist (parental religions), found a different kind of fulfillment from it than Oprah did. A guidance, if you will.

I don't know. Maybe he never attended service. Maybe his indoctrination into the religion happened over late night poker games in the rectory. Hey, it could happen!

But I find it hard to believe that a black politician fro Chicago's South Side had never heard Wright sermonize or speak words of hate about America.

The GOP is waiting to spring this issue in the fall, that much seems certain, and the way Obama has shifted his story..."Well, I would have quit the church if Rev. Wright hadn't retired by the time I came to that decision"...is just ripe for a swiftboating by the same people who broadcast over and over John Kerry's "I voted for the war before I voted against it."

And frankly, I don't want to have to sit through that film again.

(h/t not_over_it)

Look Out! He's About To Blow!

Gee...poor Barack Obama...looks like he can't stand the heat in the kitchen after all!

Barack Obama is struggling to contain his anger and frustration over the constant barrage of questions about his character and judgment, his wife has revealed.

Michelle Obama lifted the lid on the irritation felt by the leading Democrat candidate for the White House at the way anti-American outbursts by his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, have dogged his campaign.

He is said to be itching to turn all his fire on John McCain, the Republican candidate, who is benefiting most from Mr Obama's protracted tussle with Hillary Clinton.

Mrs Obama told a rally in Durham, North Carolina, on Friday that only her husband's desire to change US politics had helped him to control his feelings: "Barack is always thinking three steps ahead – what do we need to do to make change."

How nice! He's sacrificing his ulcers for you to be safe from the future!

Of course, it would be really nice if, instead of hiding what he's plannning, he actually sat down and told us specifically what he intends to do, how he intends to exercise his judgement and...

Oops! There's that word "judgement" again!

What is it that Obama is not getting? Which part of "he was my pastor for twenty years" is inconsistent with weighing heavily in how people are going to look at his ability to find counsel when things are a little above his head?

I watched Obama on the Today Show, with Matt Lauer asking some softball questions, and Obama kind of came off as lost already when Lauer asked the same thing that Charles Krauthammer asked: "How does one explain campaigning throughout 2007 on a platform of transcending racial divisions, while in that same year contributing $26,000 to a church whose pastor incites race hatred?...As if the character and beliefs of a man who would be president are less important than the 'issues.' "

These are more important issues than might at first glance seem, some of these questions. If John Kerry had been vociferous early on in his defense against the Swift Boat smears, the 2004 election might have been very different: it would have been far harder for Bush to paint Kerry as "out of touch with real Americans, this elitist product of Ivy League colleges who took the easy way out in Nam so he could windsurf off Martha's Vineyard during the summer recess."

Nevermind that the actual picture of Kerry was very different.

See, here's the thing: since 1960, there have been only four elected Democratic presidents. Of the four, three out-Bubbaed the Bubba the Republicans put up against him!And even JFK was a certified war hero who had a strong case to be made that he was a man of the people.

A Democrat who can be shown to be out of touch with the American people is going to lose a general election, period. Further, the elections of 2006 showed that Democrats made the greatest gains in red states and red territories running on a centrist, populist platform of guns, spending, and judgement/values/religion.

None of which Obama has frankly embraced fully, except religion, but that issue's now in peril from Wright. Even his ridiculous stance on the gas tax, which I might normally agree with him on, is running the risk of coming off as pedagoguery, a lecture to us peons from our betters.

I believe where Blogtopia (© Skippy the Bush Kangaroo) gets it wrong is in believing that after eight years of George W. Bush, the nation is ready to swing around completely.

It's not. The country's mood is on a pendulum, not a roundabout, which means we'll have to content ourselves with small steps in a conservative country where people DO have guns and DO go to church and if you want to be elected nationally, you damned well better not poo-poo that!

Or lose your temper at it. Or send your wife out to ask for our pity.

While You Were Looking The Other Way...

...a brand new mystery has popped up:

A fast-spreading viral outbreak in China has killed 22 children, sickened nearly 3,600 others and caused panic among parents in an impoverished corner of Anhui Province, government health officials said Friday.

All of the fatalities, from lung problems and other complications, have been in children younger than 6, with a majority of them under 2.

The outbreak, caused by a particularly strong intestinal virus, enterovirus 71, or EV-71, has been spreading in the city of Fuyang, in east-central China, since early March. Provincial health officials, however, announced the outbreak only this week, raising questions about whether they had been trying to conceal it.

Two months. 22 dead. 3,500 others sickened.

Anhui province is the 9th most densely populated province in China, therefore the rapid spread of this disease is not surprising, from that aspect.

However, enterovirus 71 is, or rather is supposed to be, a fairly common & well-known virus, usually passed on within family units. The damage wreaked by e71 is usually confined to children in the form of hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD), and results in some neurological damage. Polio is an example of another enterovirus. It's usually passed on by touching infected feces and then a mucus membrane like an eye or mouth.

That's the scary part. It's possible, given the rapid spread, that the virus has somehow become an airborne pathogen, although the fact that this is happening in northern China, with its recent water cleanliness issues, there's a simple contaminated drinking water problem.

Well, maybe "simple" is a bad word to use in this instance...

Friday Music Blogging

Toto - Africa

Not that Toto was that big a band, but this is probably the only song of theirs I can stand listening to today.

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) This is a story that gets funnier the more you think about it, the implications being so ludicrous as to transcend belief: to-wit, how was he going to carry all that money?

2) Is anybody keeping a tally? I'm not but my sense is this may be the worst tornado season in nearly a decade, and one of the worst ever recorded.

3) But you know, global warming doesn't exist.

4) Here's why we've ducked major hurricanes these past two years: dust storms.

5) Complexity fascinates me, simplicity irritates me. That's why I'm a liberal and a Democrat, I guess.

6) At the weekend, I wrote about the situation in Zimbabwe, that no run-off appeared to be needed, that Mugabe's opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, had captured over 50% of the vote. Turns out, the vote might have been counted on Diebold machines. Something fishy happened.

7) There's a sad truth to this story: sex scandals always hurt women more than men.

8) Unless you happen to be President, of course, or Governor of New York.

9) Hey! MORON! Maybe you should have thought of this before you decided to launch an invasion over oil!

10) It's fairly common wisdom that either Democratic candidate for President has to beat the other in a state in which he or she is favored to win in order to lock up the nomination. It looks like Clinton is on the verge of doing just that.

11) And now, your moment of Zen: Dropping babies off buildings!

Oh. My.

One can imagine all sorts of possible alternate explanations for this story:

Florida police are investigating the apparent suicide of a woman they believe to be the so-called D.C. Madam, who was found dead in the Florida mobile home of the madam's mother Thursday.

The madam, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, was recently convicted on federal charges stemming from operating a prostitution service in the Washington, D.C. area with a number of high-profile clients. She was scheduled to be sentenced July 24.

Palfrey told ABC News last year she would never return to prison, after serving time in the 1990s for other prostitution-related charges. "I sure as heck am not going to be going to federal prison for one day, let alone, you know, four to eight years."

Local police responding to a call late Thursday morning discovered the woman's body in a storage shed to the side of the home, according to a statement released by the Tarpon Springs, Fla. Police. Hand-written notes were found nearby which "describes the victim's intention to take her life," according to the statement.

Our good friends over at Agitprop have been all over this scandal involving Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, as well as other high profile Washingtonians, such as Randall L. Tobias, the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development and Harlan Ullman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who brought you the war you are currently tuned into.

Ironically, Tobias was Bush's first AIDS czar...

Now, notes are fine, but given that Palfrey was convicted and likely to be sentenced to jail just ahead of the Republican National Convention (not to mention the Democratic National Convention) in an election year, can you really rule out the potential for, well, a liquidation?

The rumours at the time of the Vitter revelations was that Palfrey's black book contained some pretty heavy hitting DC types, which sure sounds a bit higher on the food chain than a Presidential appointee, a Senator barely clinging to his job, and a conservative think-tanker.

The timing is more than suspicious, to say the least, although in fairness to Palfrey, her conviction was within the last fourteen days. It's possible that overwhelmed her.

Yea. A madam. Convicted of prostitution...she'd never experience that!

Medical Update

Many of you may recall that, back in December, I was diagnosed with MRSA, a skin version of staph. As I was being treated for that, the dermatologist biopsied a...thing...on my nose, that I'd had my entire adult life.

The biopsy came back malignant: basal cell carcinoma. Surgery was scheduled at the end of February, including any possible reconstructive surgery.

Surgery performed, and I was admitted to the hospital for the recon. As the plastic surgeon was working on my hole, he uncovered yet another nest of cells inside my nostril.

Those also biopsied as malignant. He stopped work right there and slapped a patch on.

The oncological surgeon took a week to get around to requesting the slides of this new growth. When she had them biopsied, they came back negative.

Cutting a bit ahead, I had the reconstructive surgery done on April 1 (ironic, as you'll see in a minute), and only am just now recovered from that this week. Two additional tests showed no more cancer.

Except...Monday, I went back to the original dermatologist, and found out that as a check, they biopsied my original sample, the one that was diagnosed as cancerous, figuring that would help determine if the second lesion was malginant.

Guess what they found? I might not ever have had cancer in the first place...

Normally, I Might Agree With Him, But...

From the AP:

Democrat Barack Obama dismissed his rivals' calls for national gas tax holiday as a political ploy that won't help struggling consumers. Hillary Rodham Clinton said his stance shows he's out of touch with the economic realities faced by ordinary citizens.

Clinton and certain Republican presidential nominee John McCain are calling for a holiday on collecting the federal gas tax "to get them through an election," Obama said at a campaign rally before more than 2,000 cheering backers a week before crucial primaries in Indiana and North Carolina. "The easiest thing in the world for a politician to do is tell you exactly what you want to hear."

I could go off in a direction that attacks Obama and point out how ludicrous it is for the "agent of change" who has voted for the Iraq invasion each and every time he's had the chance to vote on it,and "unifier" who has spent all campaign smearing arguably the most qualified candidate for President to talk about pandering, but that's not what I want to focus on.

No. Substance. Normally, I'm all for the gas tax, and indeed, have often thought it should be raised to cover infrastructure repairs and to encourage folks to buy smaller cars.

But here's a gas that impacts directly poorer Americans. Any increase that I've ever proposed has always included measures to try to get a rebate of the increase to those Americans who can afford it the least: the rural working class, who absolutely need their cars and can't afford an immediate purchase to trade up in mileage.

The idea behind progressive taxation is to shift the burden of taxes onto those who can best afford them. Taxes like the gaas tax are regressive: rich people don't drive anymore or less than poor people do.

And it's not like a sin tax, which while regressive, is avoidable with minimal expense to the person it impacts.

Too, Clinton attempts to balance the tax cut with a windfall profits tax, and you'll note the distinct silence from Congress as gas prices have skyrocketed and oil company profits have broken through the ceiling.

And this is the Democratic Congress we're talking about!

Obama is wrong here in that this is not pandering, but a recognition of reality: it's going to be hard enough to get farm workers to their jobs in the field, but this tax suspension will also help keep a lid on food prices, and how is that hurting America?

Once we've gotten past this summer, when sticker shock will have settled in and we can clear-eyed talk about what to do long term, then Senator Obama can introduce legislation to provide both environmental and economic relief to the American people.

In the meantime, he should let the lady speak.

You Know How Everyone's So Concerned About Hillary Keeping Bill In Line?

At least Bill hews to actuality and rationality.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama can't even keep his pastor's mouth shut long enough to sew up the nomination:

Attacks on him are really attacks on the black church, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. said in a speech to the National Press Club in Washington on Monday

Yup, you heard it. Rev. Jeremiah Wright is now the official spokesperson for every black church in America!

So the comparisons people have drawn to Louis Farrakhan appear to be a bit more valid and what once appeared to be crazy charges regarding Farrakhan's influence on the Obama campaign suddenly seem a little, even just slightly, less crazy.

Look, there's a lot of room for discussion regarding race, religion, and the differences between white churches and black churches.

The middle of the Presidential primary season is simply neither the place nor the time for it, and I say that knowing full well that my candidate, Hillary Clinton, can sit back and watch this slow-motion train wreck unfold: the more often Rev. Wright opens his mouth, the more voters will defect from the Obama camp:

Speaking Monday, Mr. Wright said that political opponents of Senator Obama were exploiting the fact that the style of prayer and preaching in black churches was different from European church traditions — “Different, but not deficient,” he said.

NOt so, Reverend Wright.

You see, when you say "Goddamn America", you're putting yourself squarely in the camp of people who would point to America as The Great Satan. And while there's some merit to those sentiments, particulary with regards to the oppression of Muslims in the Middle East, you know, it's those folks who have been targeting civilian Americans for decades now, with planes and car bombs and who knows what else is in the hopper?

In other words, Rev, you've aligned yourself with Osama Bin Laden, an image that is probably keeping Barack Obama awake at night, since he's already hamstrung by his inability to put away, once and for all, the smears of being an Islamist front candidate.

The money quote here, if course, is this:

As a result of this background and the unfamiliarity of many white people with black preaching, he said, some might find his sermons unsettling. He also noted that the widely circulated clips of his remarks were only short snippets lifted out of the context of much longer, closely reasoned arguments.

Perhaps, Reverend, if you admitted to pandering to your congregation, you might have some traction with this comment. Perhaps it is unfair for an entire country to judge your sermons based on small snippets and perhaps it's unfair to judge Obama by his association with you, altho he doesn't seem to think so.

The one thing I think we all, Clintonites as well as Obombers, can agree on is, while this might be an important discussion to have now, Reverend Wright, you're tearing apart the Democratic Party and you're tearing down the one candidate who could possibly continue this dialogue with white America.

So...go away.

Focus On The Cradle

It seems silly to think that, in this time of minor turbulence here in America, as two perfectly qualified people duke it out for the chance to run against another perfectly qualified man for the most powerful office in the nation, if no longer the world, we forget there's a far larger and more complex world out there.

Case in point: Zimbabwe. In what could be a preview of our own November, Zimbabwe's recent election results indicated that a thuggish regime, that of President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party, lost its hold on parliament to the Movement For A Democratic Change.

Mugabe would not be much of a thug if he just accepted those results and turned the reins of power over (which is where comparisons to America pop up, by the way). Further, preliminary results seem to indicate, altho there is no official word, that Mugabe himself has been voted out of the office of president.

A recount was called for, in due course, if only for appearances sake, the electoral commission agreed to do so. So far, 190-odd elections have been officially recounted and 190-odd results remain unchanged.

Now, if this was just a simple election dispute, no problem, right? After all, in the grand scheme of things, Zimbabwe is another landlocked country, borderded by South Africa (which to its credit has taken the lead in beating the drum for international attention), Boswana, Mozambique, and Zambia.

The story does have some intriguing aspects to it, not least of which is an unexpected wedge: China.

Angola's government has authorised a Chinese ship carrying arms destined for Zimbabwe to dock, although it says it will not be allowed to unload weapons.

In a statement, the government said the vessel would only be allowed to deliver goods intended for Angola.

On Thursday, the Chinese authorities said they would recall the ship to China after port workers in South Africa refused to unload the weapons.

Other southern African countries had also refused to allow the ship to dock.

Leaders in the region had expressed concern that the weapons could heighten tensions in Zimbabwe.

Basically, this ship swung around the South African cape, looking for a place to dock like a drunken sailor looking for an open bathroom.

Angola is China's second largest oil provider.

You can do the math, I assume. There's no way those weapons aren't being off-loaded in Angola. And yes, war is not out of the question. We are talking about Mugabe here...

Africa is a rich oil producing region, in particular Nigeria (as you probably know), but it seems the western coast of the continent has fairly robust oil reserves: Angola, Ghana, the DR Congo, all have discovered some oil reserves that they are hurrying to exploit.

Naturally, China has seized an opportunity that we in our infinite stupidity, declined to pursue.

Because, you know, it's all about the Sauds.

Friday Music Blogging

R. Dean Taylor - Indiana Wants Me

In honor of the Democrats.

Friday Cat Kitten Blogging

Es Spring, mah peeps! Dadby opin da winnow, so I tuke mah faborite Beenie Budday an luk outta winnow at da burds!

Ah es protessing! Dadby bawt a natch'l cat fud call "Ole Mubber Hubber" or somefing liek dat an ET TASE NASSEE! DO! NOT! WANT!

Hem fohse feding mee des carp!

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) Interesting analysis of the Pennsylvania primary here. I draw your attention to the very bottom of the decision tree. In counties where Bush beat Kerry badly in 2004, Clinton wins an overwhelming number, meaning that in truth, Clinton is the one who is drawing Republicans to her side, not Obama.

2) One can only hope that cooler heads will prevail here. Based on what I've heard and read about this trial, I would have voted to convict, but here's the thing: I'm not on the jury. I wasn't asked to pay 100% attention to the evidence and to make up my mind based solely on what was presented. That said, the verdict still smells bad, to me.

3) MEMO to Rev. Wright: You've had your fifteen minutes. Go away.

4) You know, I hear a lot of Obombers try to defend Wright's sermons as "Well, it's hard for white Americans to understand the black church experience." Um, excuse me, but change some of those words around, and you could say the same thing about an awful lot of hate-filled white groups with regards to black Americans.

5) Mr. President, welcome to the party we've been having for seven years now. Did you bother to bring more than your whine?

6) Remind me to drop Newsday as a paper of choice. I've always loved the fact that it wrote intelligently, and covered the news fairly. Now...not so much.

7) I think I found a job for when I retire.

8) If you had been paying attention, CNN, you'd realize she never left!

9) Memo to Rep. Clyburn: Would you have preferred that this stuff about Obama came out in the general election, thus proving to the nation that the only party that "tells the truth" is the GOP?

10) WooHoo! Now you can afford a tank of gas!

Please Put Your Pennsyls Down

The six week grind is done. Hillary won, fairly convincingly, too: ten point margin of victory, and a net gain (so far) of eight delegates.

The Obombers will spin this to imply that she actually lost, somehow, but the truth is, Obama still had a chance to put her away with a victory, and was unable to seal the deal. He has another chance in Indiana, which was solidly his just a few short weeks ago, but all indications are that it is now a dead heat, something no one would have imagined after his victories in Iowa, Wisconsin and of course, Illinois.

I'd wager if you re-ran Wisconsin at this point in time, he'd probably lose there, now.

Indiana will represent the fifth attempt by the Obama campaign to shut down Hillary Clinton. And it will be the fifth failure to do so, thus seriously damaging his claim to be someone who a) attracts new voters, b) can draw Republicans into his camp, and c) can unite the party behind him in the general election.

Tall orders for any candidate, much less an ethically-challenged man whose success is based on his close ties to the single most corrupt Democratic political machine since Tammany Hall in New York City in the 1800s!

Obama took seven, count 'em, seven of Pennsylvania's 50-odd counties. If I'm the Clinton campaign, I'm asking superdelegates as well as convention rules committees to take a closer look at even states Obama has won hands down for the county breakdown. My sense is, if you broke the entire nation down, county-by-county, Hillary wins the lion's share of the counties across the nation.

The funniest quote of the night? From Barack Obama: "After 14 long months, it's easy to forget what this campaign's about from time to time," Obama told an Evansville, Ind., rally, obliquely conceding that the Pennsylvania race turned nasty.

"It's easy to get caught up in the distractions and the silliness and the tit-for-tat that consumes our politics, the bickering that none of us are entirely immune to, and it trivializes the profound issues: two wars, an economy in recession, a planet in peril, issues that confront our nation. That kind of politics is not why we are here tonight. It's not why I'm here, and it's not why you're here." Uh, OK, soooooooooooooooo, thennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn...why'd you do it?

Why did YOU raise the race card back in South Carolina? Why did YOU call Hillary on her "periodic blow ups"? Why did YOU throw the finger at her, twice, last week?

After claiming to be the uniter, you've proven yourself to be no better than any other politician in America.

This primary season is like a guy in a small-town bar. The bartender's good. He listens to you complain about your job, your home, making ends meet. He's rough around the edges, but that's what small town life, where you have to work hard to make ends meet, can do to a person. But he knows his liquors and can mix a mean Bloody Mary on a Sunday afternoon.

Then a new waitress is hired. College kid, fresh faced. Pretty speaking voice. Flirts well with you.

But hasn't even made a glass of ice water, and you might have to spot her the ice.

But she's got that "new kid" smell about her, and BAM!, you're flirting right back.

Does it surprise you that the bartender gets a bit upset at you? You've stopped tipping him for doing his job and started lavishing your attentions on the kid whose going to be gone after this semester.

America, welcome to Cheers, where nobody knows your name except the barkeep and they only want your money.

Water, Water, Everywh--Ehhh, Not So Much!

China has roughly the same potable water resources, in terms of volume, as the United States. This water has to serve five times our population, however. The distribution of China's water means that roughly 15% of their fresh water is available to 50% of their population.

And that's assuming they've been practicing good water conservation and good waaste management. The short answer is, they haven't:

But this earthly paradise is disappearing fast. The proliferation of factories, farms, and cities—all products of China's spectacular economic boomis sucking the Yellow River dry. What water remains is being poisoned. From the canal bank, Shen points to another surreal flash of color: blood-red chemical waste gushing from a drainage pipe, turning the water a garish purple. This canal, which empties into the Yellow River, once teemed with fish and turtles, he says. Now its water is too toxic to use even for irrigation; two of Shen's goats died within hours of drinking from the canal.

The deadly pollution comes from the phalanx of chemical and pharmaceutical factories above Shen's fields, in Shizuishan, now considered one of the most polluted cities in the world. A robust man with a salt-and-pepper crew cut, Shen has repeatedly petitioned the environmental bureau to stop the unregulated dumping. The local official in charge of enforcement responded by deeming Shen's property "uninhabitable." Declaring that nothing else could be done, the official then left for a new job promoting the very industrial park he was supposed to be policing. "We are slowly poisoning ourselves," says Shen, shaking with anger. "How can they let this happen to our Mother River?"

The Yellow River, or Huang Ho, is dying:

Few waterways capture the soul of a nation more deeply than the Yellow, or the Huang, as it's known in China. It is to China what the Nile is to Egypt: the cradle of civilization, a symbol of enduring glory, a force of nature both feared and revered. From its mystical source in the 14,000-foot Tibetan highlands, the river sweeps across the northern plains where China's original inhabitants first learned to till and irrigate, to make porcelain and gunpowder, to build and bury imperial dynasties. But today, what the Chinese call the Mother River is dying. Stained with pollution, tainted with sewage, crowded with ill-conceived dams, it dwindles at its mouth to a lifeless trickle. There were many days during the 1990s that the river failed to reach the sea at all.

Most analysts look at the world's future and see oil.

I do not, altho oil will certainly play a role, perhaps even a significant one, in future conflicts. I see water. Between 1996 and 2006, China has tripled its oil imports, with its major source of supply coming from Saudia Arabia (175 million barrels), Angola (172 million) and Iran (123 million).

You'll notice only one of those sources supplies the US with any significant energy. Too, the water crisis in China has served to highlight the foolishness of a wasteful energy policy, particularly when your population far outstrips nearly every other nation on the planet (save India).

Water, however, is something that we may go head to head with China over. Canada has excess capacity, given its smaller population and larger land mass, and the United States will find itself bidding, particularly out west, against China.

After all, when you absolutely need water, you need water, and the cost stops being a factor when people are dying.

A quick look at a map of the Huang shows that, for all intents and purposes, it is useless for drinking water anyplace west of Shizuishan. Unfortunately, that's where the people and the jobs are.

China is on a precipice: it needs energy. It has pollution, in abundance.

Not just water pollution, but air pollution and poisoned lands. The Beijing Olympics are already being warned about air pollution during some of the events: particularly during the opening and closing ceremonies, as China attempts to alter the weather to prevent rain, levels of pollution may exceed not just esthetic levels, but health levels.

And the population continues to grow, although there are signs that growth may begin to reverse. There are far more single men than women in China, and many of the young women are postponing family life for their careers now. Only some 35% of Chinese women polled have said they would raise a family ahead of a career, unheard of in Chinese society.

Hm, maybe Hillary should run for Premier? She wouldn't have to worry about some upstart con man...

But those are generational changes, and the problems of pollution and water scarcity are affecting China now.

Forget oil. Water is where wars will be fought.

A Free Peak Into The Future

Courtesy of l'il ole Actor212 and Reuters news service:

Barack Obama's efforts to woo white voters in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary have been hurt by his comments on small town bitterness and his association with an outspoken pastor, some residents of Muncy Valley say.

Local people called the Illinois senator arrogant, unpatriotic and un-Christian after his remarks that residents of small towns in Pennsylvania and elsewhere are bitter because of job losses, and so have turned to traditions like guns, religion and anti-immigrant sentiment.

"He is saying people are weak, dumb and naive, and they are seeking religion as a way of getting through," said Darwin Whitmoyer, 54, a white truck driver, at the gas station in this town of about 100 people 150 miles (240 km) northwest of Philadelphia. "He didn't help himself."

Now, much of Blogtopia has handed me hell over the past few weeks for pointing out what should be painfully obvious to anyone who's given even a moment's reflection to the election process.

Obama is very seriously in danger of losing the general election, should Democrats be assholic enough to select him as the nominee.

There's this huge echo chamber going on, starting with the Great Orange Satan, Daily Kos, through Atrios, and trickling on down to other, B- and C-list blogs. This echo chamber has banged a drum slowly until all you can hear is the drum beat for Obama.

And yet, Hillary keeps hanging in there and Obama has had three distinct shots to put her away and has failed miserably each time: New Hampshire, Texas, and now, Pennsylvania. He's even had to warp the elective process, denying the voters of Florida and Michigan their due process by opposing any revotes.

But he still can't put her away. If the election was held in Blogtopia, tho, Hillary would have folded up her tents after Iowa.

Which tells you what, precisely?

It should tell you there is a significantly more conservative America out there that votes than the morons who believe Obama is the Second Coming of either John Edwards or John Kennedy, depending on whom you talk to.

But hey, I've only been saying this since Obama started in talking about Hillary's periods...