Obama is too smart to be president

Warrior John McCain: Far More Dangerous Than Bush

by Steve Weissman

    During the hottest days of the Cold War, Gen. Thomas Power headed the Strategic Air Command, whose nuclear-armed B-52s were meant to deter the Soviet Union. General Power, like many of the Air Force brass at the time, believed that nuclear war with the Soviets was inevitable. He thought the United States would do better to fight that war sooner rather than later and believed we could emerge victorious. "At the end of the war," he argued in 1960, "if there are two Americans and one Russian, we win!"

    Listening to John McCain talk about Iraq and Iran, I keep thinking of Power. Counter-insurgency and nuclear obliteration are poles apart, I know. But McCain's insistence on "winning in Iraq," remaining there "until Iraq is secure," and "bomb-bomb-bombing Iran" reveal the same mindset that made General Power so dangerous. Caught up in his fear that a military failure would encourage America's enemies, McCain can see no alternative to military victory, no matter what the cost. This might be a laudable spirit to drum into raw military recruits, but could prove extremely self-destructive in a commander in chief.

http://www.truthout.org/article/warrior-john-mccain-far-more-dangerous-than-bush

 

Lady Justice

The Pundits Speak: Keith Olbermann and other traditional journalists on gay issues

by Michael Jensen

As part of the research for our Gay-Baiting '08 article, AfterElton.com interviewed various television commentators about their opinion on the role of gay issues in the upcoming election. These are their responses.

AfterElton.com: How much have things changed since the 2004 election when the Republicans used anti-gay sentiments to increase turnout for their party?
Keith Olbermann, Host, Countdown with Keith Olbermann: When nobody can afford to go to a gay wedding, a straight wedding or a protest of a gay wedding, [the issue] is not going to make any difference. This is the danger of values, if you will, and that's used as a facetious term, values politics – when that's all you've got, when reality intervenes, like nobody can afford to keep their home or put gasoline or home winter heating oil in it this winter, people are going to say, "You're serious? You want me to vote for you when you've ruined the economy, ruined our place in the world, haven't stopped terrorism, made us kind of the bullies of the world, and I'm supposed to vote for you because you have some phony baloney belief that gay people shouldn't have the right to be just as miserable as all the straight married people?" Really, I sense in the country a strong sense of incredulity to a lot of this and it's not just gender or sexual orientation issues, but all these other things are just being trotted out and thrown out and nobody's responding to them.

Joe Scarborough, Host, Morning Joe: Well, Karl Rove's job was to get George Bush elected. I'm sure Rove looked at it and people who worked for Bush looked at it as a wedge issue to drive evangelicals out. And if you look at the results of 2004, it was an Evangelical base that ended up making the difference to George Bush in Florida and Ohio and in a lot of other states that really mattered. As far as the strategy they employed, it worked. But the world has changed, I think, at least, when it comes to social issues like gay marriage being used as a wedge issue.

http://www.afterelton.com/people/2008/8/pundits

Iraq Should Use Its Oil Sales to Pay for Rebuilding, Levin Says

By Aliza Marcus

The U.S. should stop paying for reconstruction projects in Iraq because the Baghdad government can fund the rebuilding from its sales of crude oil, two U.S. senators said.

Proposed legislation in the Senate would stop the U.S. from using any more taxpayer money to fund reconstruction projects in Iraq, Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a Michigan Democrat, said today on CNN's ``Late Edition'' program.

``It is an outrage. It is absolutely offensive that American taxpayers who are paying $130 a barrel for Iraqi oil, $4 a gallon at the pump for Iraqi gasoline, are also spending taxpayers' dollars to reconstruct Iraq,'' Levin said.

U.S. agencies spent $23.2 billion on security, oil, electricity generation and water projects since the ouster of the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and his regime in 2003, according to an Aug. 5 report by Congress's investigative agency, the Government Accountability Office. The Iraqi government spent $3.9 billion on those needs in the past three years, the report said.

``We need to put a limitation on the use of building -- rebuilding of infrastructure in Iraq using American taxpayer funds,'' Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said on the show.

President George W. Bush also should demand that Iraq reimburse the U.S. for continuing reconstruction costs, Levin said. ``We're spending money to build hotels in the economic reconstruction zone at the Baghdad Airport. Those hotels will be owned by the Iraqi government. It is an outrage. It should end.''

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=ans3XHizFktA&refer=home

Let's hear it for 'em

President Bush: The Clockwatcher-in-Chief?

By David Corn

I'm still on vacation--lucky me--but I've managed to watch a bit of the Olympics. The opening ceremony was rather impressive. Talk about organization and competence: two thousand and eight Tai Chi practitioners forming a perfect circle and maintaining it through a series of elaborate moves.

That was some counterpoint to George W. Bush. Later that night, during the parade of nations, he was practically slumped in his seat, toting a small American flag--was it made in China?--with a bored expression on his face. Prior to the games, there was a debate over whether he should attend and further legitimize the repressive Chinese regime. But as he sat there, that debate no longer seemed so relevant, for he looked irrelevant. There was no one next to him but his wife. And the question was, didn't he have anything better to do with his time? The apparent answer: no.

War was breaking out between Russia and Georgia. The economy in the United States was continuing a downward slide. Negotiations between Washington and Iraq over an agreement governing U.S. troops had seemingly failed. And his presidency was running out of time. Yet he seemed like not such a busy guy. He even stayed in China to watch events. I, too, would have enjoyed witnessing Michael Phelps first gold-medal victory of these Olympics, but, then again, I don't have a superpower to run. At least, Bush was able to hobnob with Henry Kissinger at that event. (He did meet with Chinese President Hu on Sunday for what he described, of course, as a "constructive" conversation.)

This all raised the question in my mind: what does Bush want to get done before the W. years are over. Not much, it seems.

http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/davidcorn/2008/08/president-bush-the-clockwatche.html

Oil fight could trigger a federal shutdown

by Zachary Coile

House Republicans, who've been hounding Speaker Nancy Pelosi for weeks over her refusal to allow a vote on new domestic oil drilling, are plotting a high-stakes confrontation this fall that could spark a shutdown of the federal government.

Republicans see an opportunity when Congress returns Sept. 8 and will have to pass a temporary measure to keep the government funded beyond Sept. 30. Democrats are likely to include in the measure an extension of the congressional moratorium on offshore drilling, which would otherwise expire at the end of September. GOP lawmakers warn they may try to block the measure - or pressure President Bush to veto it - if Democrats won't relent and allow the drilling ban to lapse. If neither side gives in, it would force at least a temporary shutdown of the government.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/10/MNLM12704T.DTL

 

Bend over

Pippi

Franz Kafka’s porn brought out of the closet

by Dalya Alberge

A stash of explicit pornography to which Franz Kafka subscribed has emerged for the first time after being studiously ignored by scholars anxious to preserve the iconic writer's saintly image.

Having stumbled by chance across copies in the British Library in London and the Bodleian in Oxford while doing unrelated research, James Hawes, the academic and Kafka expert, reveals some of this erotic material in Excavating Kafka, to be published this month. His book seeks to explode important myths surrounding the literary icon, a "quasi-saintly" image which hardly fits with the dark and shocking pictures contained in these banned journals.

Their additional significance is that the publisher, Dr Franz Blei, was also the man who first published Kafka in 1908 - a series of miniature stories later gathered in his book Meditation.

Hawes, an Oxford graduate and university lecturer, emphasises his total admiration for the literary Kafkaesque genius who wrote brooding classics such as The Metamorphosis, The Castle and The Trial, and argues that these discoveries merely show Kafka as more human than the popular image. He believes that "suppressing" them detracts from sensible assessment of his work, and has even led to nonsensical evaluation.

Even today, the pornography would be "on the top shelf", Dr Hawes said, noting that his American publisher did not want him to publish it at first. "These are not naughty postcards from the beach. They are undoubtedly porn, pure and simple. Some of it is quite dark, with animals committing fellatio and girl-on-girl action... It's quite unpleasant."

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article4446131.ece

13 Workers Dead: A Look at the "Shocking" and "Disgraceful" Imperial Sugar Tragedy

by Phil Mattera

VP at Imperial Sugar admits that working conditions at the plant where an explosion took the lives of 13 workers earlier this year were terrible.

Savannah Fire and Emergency Services Captain Todd Heil during the search for survivors at the site of an Imperial Sugar Refinery explosion in Port Wentworth, Georgia that killed 13. Imperial Sugar Company has been fined $8.7 million for OSHA violations in their factories in Georgia and Louisiana. (Photo: Carl Elmore / Savannah Morning News)

    "Shocking" and "disgraceful" are not the sort of words we expect to hear from a corporate executive when referring to his or her own company, but that's exactly what happened at a recent Senate hearing about the conditions at Imperial Sugar. Those descriptors made up part of the testimony of Graham H. Graham, vice president for operations at the company, which was recently hit with a proposed fine of $5 million by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in connection with conditions that caused a dust explosion earlier this year at its Port Wentworth, Georgia plant that killed 13 workers. Another fine of $3.7 million was proposed by OSHA in connection with similar problems at the company's operation in Gramercy, Louisiana.

    "It was without a doubt the dirtiest and most dangerous manufacturing plant I had ever come to," said Graham about the non-union Port Wentworth refinery, which he toured after being hired by Imperial Sugar late last year. He claimed to have pointed out more than 400 safety violations and was in the process of having them corrected when the accident occurred. CEO John Sheptor, who declined to testify at the hearing of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions, told the Associated Press that Graham has "exaggerated numerous things regularly about our facilities." Sheptor's p.r. people should have told him that line doesn't work when you have the blood of 13 workers on your hands.

http://www.truthout.org/article/the-shocking-and-disgraceful-imperial-sugar-tragedy

Offshore drilling

Strange mission at Wilson Airport

By Cyrus Ombati And Brian Adero

Strange and unscheduled military planes from the US have in the last two months been making secretive night landings in Kenya, in what are feared as missions to move terror suspects from the country.

The night landings of US planes at Nairobi's Wilson Airport, carrying American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officials have raised suspicion and controversy not only among local security agents, but also players in aviation.

Planes at Wilson Airport. Questions have been raised over US aircraft operating from the airport. PHOTO: CORRESPONDENT/

The Prescott Support Group, which has been accused in other parts of the world of being involved in renditioning terror suspects, was allowed to operate in Kenya two months ago.

Documents in our possession show that the company was allowed to fly in and out in a Gazette notice dated June 20 for two years.

Prescott Support Group, which according to the American media, has links with the CIA, applied for renewal of their licence in May, even after the Kenya Association of Air Operators (KAAO) questioned their licence and mission.

Despite the concerns, the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) went ahead and granted the two-year licence although ordinarily they should have sought clearance from the Department of Defence (DOD) because of their military aircraft.

According to the Gazette notice, Prescott Group was given the secret landing licence through the US Embassy in Nairobi, whose officials we could not get a comment from on Sunday.

KCAA Director-General Chris Kuto on Sunday confirmed the operations of the planes, saying they were involved in "Turkana for mapping purposes".

Kuto said the planes carry only American soldiers and their equipment and not passengers, contrary to information from sources at Wilson Airport who had indicated that some passengers did not look like US military officers who are normally in uniform.

http://www.eastandard.net/InsidePage.php?id=1143992192&cid=4

Tips for Spackling and Plastering a Black Hole

You might think you need to hire a professional to spackle and plaster a black hole, but you can really tackle this kind of project on your own. The first step is to carefully inspect the black hole. Stick your head right into the black hole and look around. Do you see any loose materials or galaxies in there? You can dislodge loose materials and galaxies using a regular spackling knife. Make sure you get all the galaxies you find, because there's nothing worse than a half galaxy hanging off the inside of a black hole.

After you've cleaned up inside the black hole, withdraw your head.

Next you'll need to buy some spackle and plaster. If you have a half tube left from your last spackling job, that won't be enough. You'll need a generous amount of spackle and plaster to completely fill a black hole. A good ballpark quantity is 1000 times the total amount of spackle sold in the past 500 years.

When you have your spackle and plaster beside you, you're ready to start. Make sure the mixture is firm but not too firm. Work your way from one side of the black hole to the other. Be careful not to back yourself into the black hole. If you do, it's pretty much all over.

If the black hole is really large, you might want to use chicken wire to support your spackle and plaster. Here again, you'll need generous quantities. You can bypass your local home improvement store and go straight to Perdue.

You'll need to order 500 million tons of chicken wire, at a minimum. (Don't worry about getting too much chicken wire. Any leftovers you can use for other black holes you fill in.)

Stretch the chicken wire from one side of the black hole to the other being careful not to let any of the middle wire sag too deeply into the hole. Most of the time you can gently pull the middle sag back out and pat things back into shape.

You can take satisfaction when the black hole is almost entirely filled. With the right technique, what was once a gaping hole in the universe can blend in smoothly with the surrounding space. Someone seeing your work would hardly suspect a black hole ever existed there.

http://www.his.com/~pshapiro/spackling.html

McCain's biography

Coincidence? Guantanamo term ends as Bush's does

By Jane Sutton

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - It was no coincidence the U.S. military jurors at Guantanamo timed the prison sentence they gave Osama bin Laden's driver to end just before President George W. Bush's term does, legal analysts say.

The timing seems intended to give the next U.S. president who takes office on January 20 a chance to override the Bush administration's announcement that it will continue to hold convicted Yemeni captive Salim Hamdan as an "enemy combatant" in the war against terrorism after he finishes his sentence.

"My inference is that they concluded that this administration would not release Hamdan at the end of his sentence, but the next one might," said David Glazier, a national security expert who teaches at Loyola Law School.

"I think Hamdan's continued detention past the end of his sentence, although justifiable under the law of war, would be a political train wreck, and I think the panel made an effort to protect the U.S. from further international criticism."

Both major U.S. presidential candidates have said they would close the detention camp at the U.S. naval base in Cuba.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0947003820080810?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

Obama compared to Britney

Targeting Obama for his choice in vacation spots

by Steve Benen

One could, I suppose, criticize Barack Obama for wanting to take a break from the campaign trail. There are just 86 days until the election, and just 15 days until the Democratic National Convention, and one might feel tempted to tell Obama, "You can rest after November 4."

But it seems Obama isn't being criticized for taking a break, so much as he's being criticized for where he's taking a break. TNR's Michael Crowley noted:

I know he grew up [in Hawaii] and all. But if Obama's being smeared as a highfalutin celebrity who is somehow "other" and distant from the American heartland, is Hawaii really the ideal vacation destination? It sounds trivial but such things can resonate…. John Kerry's staff asked him not to windsurf in the summer of 2004 and he didn't listen. The results are famous.

I might have counseled a nice cottage beside some Illinois lake with a wholesome name….

Similarly, the Politico's Carrie Budoff Brown had a 1,200-word piece yesterday on the perils of Obama spending eight days in the state of his birth.

After Kerry retreated to Nantucket during the Republican convention, footage of him windsurfing there later surfaced in an attack ad deeming him the candidate who votes "whichever way the wind blows."

"For somebody who has been called 'elitist,' going to Hawaii is not exactly going against type," [Douglas Schoen, a pollster for Clinton's reelection campaign] said. "I would rather have him going to national parks."

I suppose it's hard to know what kind of superficial concerns voters might take seriously, but all of this seems a little excessive.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/16506.html

Let There Be Light

 

 

A long-suffering border colonia powers up with renewable energy.

by Forrest Wilder

For a decade, the onset of the stifling summer heat in South Texas meant it was time for Patricia Gonzalez and her three children to drag their mattresses out of their cramped home to sleep outside. Like their neighbors, the Gonzalezes didn't have electricity. No fans or air conditioning broke the heat. An ice chest kept the food and medication for her kids' respiratory ailments cool. When daylight faded, she and her three children did schoolwork by candlelight (Gonzalez was studying for a GED). In the summer, they would sweat; in the winter, they would shiver.

For 36 years, the people of La Presa, a dusty neighborhood set among prickly pear cactus and squat huisache trees 10 miles south of Laredo, have lived without potable water, sewer connections, drainage, and properly maintained roads. Water for drinking and cooking is hauled in by truck and stored in large, plastic barrels. Septic systems often consist of little more than a cesspool behind the house. Most of the 350 residents in this colonia—shorthand for a substandard development built in an unincorporated area without basic services—aren't connected to the electric grid. Instead, they get by with portable gas generators, electricity shared among neighbors via a daisy chain of extension cords, power poached from the grid, or nothing at all.

For 36 years, the people of La Presa, a dusty, sweltering colonia south of Laredo, have lived without electricity, potable water, or an adequate sewage system.

Now an innovative experiment has brought power to a dozen lucky residents of La Presa, including Gonzalez. By the end of the year, all 100 homes in the colonia will be hooked up to a "microgrid" provided by a partnership between a for-profit power company and the state. If the project works, it could be applied to other colonias in Texas, which has more of these substandard communities than any other state. According to the Texas Secretary of State, there are 2,300 colonias in Texas that more than 400,000 people call home.

http://www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=2817

8,000 jobs

Iraq demands "very clear" U.S. troop timeline

 

By Mohammed Abbas

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The United States must provide a "very clear timeline" to withdraw its troops from Iraq as part of an agreement allowing them to stay beyond this year, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said on Sunday.

It was the strongest public assertion yet that Iraq is demanding a timeline. U.S. President George W. Bush has long resisted setting a firm schedule for pulling troops out of Iraq, although last month the White House began speaking of a general "time horizon" and "aspirational goals" to withdraw.

Iraq's leaders have become more confident of their ability to provide security as the country has become safer. But attacks which killed at least 15 people on Sunday, including a U.S. soldier, were a reminder it is still a violent place.

In an interview with Reuters, Zebari said the agreement, including the timeline, was "very close" and would probably be presented to the Iraqi parliament in early September.

Asked if Iraq would accept a document that did not include dates for a withdrawal, Zebari said: "No, no. Definitely there has to be a very clear timeline."

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL818601720080810

Offshore Drilling: Candidates Concur on Bad Idea

In a rare burst of bipartisan consensus, Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama have agreed on a dreadful proposal: Open more of America's fragile coastlines to offshore oil drilling.

How is it awful? Let me count the ways.

1. It will do nothing for today's or tomorrow's pump prices. The U.S. Energy Department says it: Drilling in these previously banned offshore areas "would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030."

The idea that extracting more oil in the United States would uniquely benefit American consumers is also nonsense. Oil gets poured into tankers and sold to the world's highest bidders.

A Rasmussen Reports poll finds that more than two-thirds of voters want to allow this offshore exploitation. Nearly that many believe it will bring lower prices. Hence, two candidates who had sensibly opposed such drilling now talk it up.

2. It endangers some of America's most treasured environments. There is a reason for the ban on offshore drilling. Nearly 40 years ago, an oil rig blowout near Santa Barbara, Calif., let loose a black tide of crude that killed 10,000 birds, choked marine plants and fouled gorgeous California beaches from Pismo to Oxnard. That traumatic event led to the end of oil exploration off the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts.

3. Californians and Floridians detest the plan — or should. Real estate and tourism interests have joined environmentalists in opposing any move toward drilling along their oceanfronts. In much of California and Florida, real estate and tourism are the economy.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger immediately denounced the call to relax restrictions on offshore drilling, as have Florida's two senators, Democrat Bill Nelson and Republican Mel Martinez.

Sadly, recent polls show residents in those states warming to the notion of offshore drilling. Someone should replay that ghastly news footage of the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill.

http://www.creators.com/opinion/froma-harrop/offshore-drilling-candidates-concur-on-bad-idea.html

The McCain Plan

John McCain gets go ahead

Countdown: Nothing About The FBI's Anthrax Story Adds Up

By SilentPatriot

Keith interviewed investigative journalist Gerald Posner last night, who did a great job of shattering all of the inconsistencies and improbabilities in the FBI's official case against alleged anthrax killer Bruce Ivins.

The strongest evidence they have going for them is also their Achilles' heel and that he's psychological profile.  That fact that he's very unstable, that he was someone who was an alcoholic, that he might wanted to have the vaccine continue to go along, but that's also the fact that he could have been set up as a cutout or puppet or used by a group of people who wanted the anthrax out there.

They also knew about his weak psychological profile.  How was he employed with the most secret biological warfare lab in the United States with this type of background that we now hear about?  That they should have known about from day one.  The Defense Department should hang its head in shame.

http://crooksandliars.com/2008/08/07/countdown-nothing-about-the-fbis-anthrax-story-adds-up/#more-31659

Drink it or Drive it: The Promise of Agave for Ethanol

 by Sarah Lozanova

Corn has given ethanol a bad name and scientists are searching far and wide for alternative feedstock. Agave has been getting attention lately and looks very promising, although tequila connoisseurs may not be cheering. Here's why agave is so much appealing:

High Yield Per Acre

Soybeans generate a measly 60 gallons of biodiesel annually from an acre of land and has an energy balance of 2.5. Corn generates about 300-400 gallons of ethanol per acre and has an energy balance of 1.3. Sugar cane can generate 600-800 gallons of ethanol per acre annually and has an energy balance of 8. Sugar cane unfortunately is very labor intensive to cultivate and could contribute to deforestation.

Agave however can yield an impressive 2,000 gallons of distilled ethanol per acre each year annually. Cellulosic ethanol from agave has 6 to 9 times the yield per acre. This would significantly reduce the quantity of land needed to produce the same quantity of transportations fuels.

Thrives in Wastelands

Agave fixes nitrogen in the soil and actually improves the soil quality where it is grown. 95% of the Agavacea family calls Mexico home and 50% of the country is ideally suited for agave cultivation. Dry, arid, and steep terrain typically have fewer economic opportunities and greater poverty. Ethanol from agave would open up new markets in marginalized lands.

Few other ethanol feedstocks grow well on marginalized lands. Sugar cane, which is used widely in Brazil for ethanol production, is grown in tropical regions and can drive deforestation.

http://cleantechnica.com/2008/08/08/drink-it-or-drive-it-the-promise-of-agave-for-ethanol/

Worst President Ever

The Folk Brothers, David Massengill and Jack Hardy, perform Jack's song "Worst President Ever" on the Main Stage of the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival 2008

Is Anyone Ready?

by Susan Estrich

The knives are out for my friend Bill Clinton. Again.

There he is in Rwanda, not one of the top spots for August vacations, trying to do something to stop a few million Africans from dying of curable diseases. Far as I can tell, no one wanted to discuss that, or at least report what he had to say about it.

No, it was his refusal to simply say "yes" when asked whether he thinks Barack Obama is ready to be president that resulted in one of the most viewed stories this week.

In fact, if you look at what he did say, it was almost certainly true. "You can argue that nobody is ready to be president," the former president told ABC News.

"You can argue that even if you've been vice president for eight years, that no one can be fully ready for the pressures of the office," Clinton said Monday from Rwanda.

You can argue it, for sure, and you'd be right, looking at history. But if you're Bill Clinton, apparently you're not supposed to say it. News reports quoted Clinton "backers" as saying the president couldn't give the politically correct answer because he's still smarting from his wife's loss. And that's what Clinton backers were saying. My e-mails from Obama backers cannot be printed.

What was Clinton doing?

Maybe he was just being honest.

http://www.creators.com/opinion/susan-estrich/is-anyone-ready.html

The coming Republican fall

by Larry Meacham

Pay no attention to the national polls, an analysis of state voting trends shows Obama's the guy

Barack Obama's tour of the Middle East and Europe looked like the Second Coming. Barack sermonizes on a Jerusalem mount. U.S. troops cheer as Barack shoots a three-pointer with nothing but net -- the loaves and fishes. Jordan's King Abdullah personally drives Barack to the airport. A crowd of 200,000 applauds Barack's Berlin speech. Barack speaks to reporters in front of 10 Downing Street, with English bobbies on guard.

The media were seduced by the great pictures, but frustrated by a lack of gaffes. Meanwhile, in order to keep their ratings high, they are desperately trying to make the November election seem tight. Good luck.

National polls are irrelevant. Focus on the Electoral College. For instance, the West Coast map should not show Washington and Oregon as close. They went Democratic the last two elections, the polls show Obama well ahead and a recent Obama rally in Portland drew an astounding 75,000 people. California and Hawaii are even more solidly Democratic.

In the Midwest, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan also should not be counted as swing states, having voted Democratic even when the uninspiring John Kerry was the candidate. As for Iowa, George Bush won narrowly in 2004. But Obama has a powerful organization there that won him the primary, while John McCain did not even try to compete on the Republican side. Count Iowa for Obama, plus his home state of Illinois.

Obama will win the Northeast, as Democrats usually do, except perhaps New Hampshire (only 4 electoral votes). Forget maps that show Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware as doubtful -- they are consistently Democratic.

Pennsylvania is a key swing state. It voted for Kerry and Al Gore, recent polls show Obama ahead by double digits and Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell has a strong organization. Give Pennsylvania to Obama.

In other words, Obama will win all the states that usually go Democratic. That gives him 255 electoral votes. It only takes 270 to win.

http://archives.starbulletin.com/2008/08/10/editorial/commentary2.html

Tear down that wall

Wash Post: "Obama Hits Back, Too Softly For Some"

AMERICAblog.com

Interesting article in today's Washington Post. It encapsulates the angst many Democrats are starting to feel about the election, McCain's increasingly negative attacks, and the Obama campaign's responses to those attacks. Democrats we talk to are worried. They're not just the chattering class on TV. It's Democrats across the board. They're worried because they want Obama to win, but more generally, they want our party to win. This election is about far more than Barack Obama. It's about Democrats taking back the White House, taking back our country. All Democrats share ownership of that goal. Here are a few of the key points in the article, and my thoughts: 1. "We are not going to base our campaign on the concerns of so-called campaign strategists on cable TV," spokesman Bill Burton said. In fact, lots of Democrats are expressing concern, including senior Hill staff, senior consultants, senior activists, and more. 2. "The price [McCain] paid for his party's nomination has been to reverse himself on position after position," Obama told a crowd of more than 1,000 at a high school gym in Elkhart. "That doesn't meet my definition of a maverick. You can't be a maverick when politically it's important for you but not a maverick when it doesn't work for you." This is great, seriously. Hit McCain on his strength, his "maverick" status. Guaranteed to tick him off. 3. [Y]ou have to counterattack. You don't want to look like a whiner. You want to look tough." This is a point I've raised several times. I think John Kerry and Al Gore paid a high price for being intellectual pretty-boys who didn't show enough of a tough-guy side (interestingly, I think Wesley Clark has the same PR problem - way too nice of a guy on TV, and never shows his inner general). The public knows Obama is smart and good looking, now they need to know that he can be an asshole too.

http://www.americablog.com/2008/08/wash-post-obama-hits-back-too-softly.html

U.S. guns arm Mexican drug cartels

Licensed weapons dealers are abundant near the border. 'Straw buyers' assist the traffickers.

By Richard A. Serrano

SIERRA VISTA, ARIZ. -- High-powered automatic weapons and ammunition are flowing virtually unchecked from border states into Mexico, fueling a war among drug traffickers, the army and police that has left thousands dead, according to U.S. and Mexican officials.

The munitions are hidden under trucks and stashed in the trunks of cars, or concealed under the clothing of people who brazenly walk across the international bridges. They are showing up in seizures and in the aftermath of shootouts between the cartels and police in Mexico.

 

More than 90% of guns seized at the border or after raids and shootings in Mexico have been traced to the United States, according to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Last year, 2,455 weapons traces requested by Mexico showed that guns had been purchased in the United States, according to the ATF. Texas, Arizona and California accounted for 1,805 of those traced weapons.

No one is sure how many U.S.-purchased guns have made their way into Mexico, but U.S. authorities estimate the number in the thousands.

 

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-guns10-2008aug10,0,6985616.story?page=1&track=ntothtml

Springtime for Hitler

By PAUL KRUGMAN

 

You may recall that George W. Bush promised, among other things, to change the tone in Washington. He made good on that promise: the tone has certainly changed.

As far as I know, in the past it wasn't considered appropriate for the occupant of the White House to declare that members of the opposition party weren't interested in the nation's security. And it certainly wasn't usual to compare anyone who wants to tax the rich -- or even anyone who estimates the share of last year's tax cut that went to the wealthy -- to Adolf Hitler.

O.K., maybe we should discount remarks by Senator Phil Gramm. When Mr. Gramm declared that a proposal to impose a one-time capital gains levy on people who renounce U.S. citizenship in order to avoid paying taxes was ''right out of Nazi Germany,'' even the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, Charles Grassley, objected to the comparison.

But Mr. Grassley must have thought better of his objection, since just a few weeks later he decided to use the Hitler analogy himself: ''I am sure voters will get their fill of statistics claiming that the Bush tax cut hands out 40 percent of its benefits to the top 1 percent of taxpayers. This is not merely misleading, it is outright false. Some folks must be under the impression that as long as something is repeated often enough, it will become true. That was how Adolf Hitler got to the top.''

For the record, Robert McIntyre of Citizens for Tax Justice -- the original source of that 40 percent estimate -- is no Adolf Hitler. The amazing thing is that Mr. Grassley is sometimes described as a moderate. His remarks are just one more indicator that we have entered an era of extreme partisanship -- one that leaves no room for the acknowledgment of politically inconvenient facts. For the claim that Mr. Grassley describes as ''outright false'' is, in fact, almost certainly true; in a rational world it wouldn't even be a matter for argument.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9a0defde133df93ba25753c1a9649c8b63

A Nation of Whiners? Perhaps

by Froma Harrop

You won't hear me straining to defend Phil Gramm, the Texas Republican whose penchant for grating commentary sunk his 1996 bid for the presidency before the New Hampshire primary. It was really just a matter of time before the former senator, serving as John McCain's economic advisor, put his foot in it: Gramm opined that Americans complaining about the economy were "whiners."

It's not good politics to call any voter a whiner, and Gramm had to leave the campaign. But honesty impels one to grant him this: The point about America being "a nation of whiners" is not without merit.

Yes, losing one's job or home is traumatic, and having both taken away more so. But the average citizens facing $4-a-gallon gas and learning that their hacienda isn't the money factory they thought it was haven't exactly been thrown into the Dust Bowl. Some Europeans pay twice as much for gas and live in half the space, and no one is passing around the hat for them.

I spent last week replaying Ken Burns' searing series on World War II. "The War" follows several American families ranging from working class to upper-middle class. None of them, not even the fancy folks in Mobile, Ala., lived as large as today's typical McMansion family.

These people also had to endure the war's horrific sacrifice, made more unbearable by the youth of the dead. Nearly 7,000 Americans perished on the tiny island of Iwo Jima alone, with several times that number injured, many grievously. It was a hideous battle in a long parade of gruesome campaigns. Over 400,000 Americans died in that war.

One of the documentary's running themes was that of servicemen pining for their loved ones back home. And their homes were modest triple-deckers in Connecticut, farmhouses in Minnesota or bungalows in California.

When the war ended, Americans soon resumed their historic quest for bigger and better.But even then, the returning soldier's idea of palatial living was a 750-square-foot house in Levittown, one-third the average size of a new home in 2006. The accommodations in Americans, by the way, were the envy of ruined Europe.

So the recent economic downturn hasn't made Americans poor by any sane measurement.

http://www.creators.com/opinion/froma-harrop/a-nation-of-whiners-perhaps.html

No respect

7 worrisome signs for Obama

by Glenn Thrush

A few weeks back, Time magazine was musing that John McCain was in danger of sliding from "a long shot" to a "no-shot." Around the same time, a hard-nosed former Hillary Clinton insider declared the race "effectively over" thanks to the McCain campaign's ineptitude, the tanking U.S. economy and Obama's advantages in cash, charisma and hope. And Obama, up by three to six points nationally, was about to leverage a much-anticipated trip to Iraq, Afghanistan and Europe into a pre-convention poll surge.

Instead, his supporters are now suffering a pre-Denver panic attack, watching as John McCain draws incrementally closer in state and national polls – with Rasmussen's most recent daily national tracker showing a statistical dead heat.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton has been privately enumerating her doubts about Obama to supporters, according to people who have spoken with her. Clinton's pollster Mark Penn recently unveiled a PowerPoint presentation red-flagging Obama's lukewarm leads among white female voters and Hispanics – while predicting a five-point swing could turn a presumed Obama win into a McCain landslide.

"It's not that people think McCain will win – it's that they are realizing that McCain could win," says Quinnipiac University pollster Peter Brown, whose surveys show tight races in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. "This election is about Barack Obama — not John McCain — it's about whether Barack Obama passes muster. Every poll shows that people want a Democratic president, the problem is they're not sure they want Barack Obama."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080811/pl_politico/12433

Who Framed George Lakoff?

A noted linguist reflects on his tumultuous foray into politics

 

By EVAN R. GOLDSTEIN

George P. Lakoff is falling asleep. It is a bright summer afternoon in San Francisco, and Lakoff is nursing a latte at a small table near the entrance of a bustling, sun-dappled cafe. "This is what happens when you are 67," he explains sheepishly after dozing off midsentence. A stocky man with a wide smile and a well-trimmed white beard, Lakoff doesn't seem tired so much as beleaguered.

For years he's been at the center of some of the biggest intellectual disagreements in linguistics (most famously with Noam Chomsky) and has helped create an important interdisciplinary field of study, cognitive linguistics, that is reshaping our understanding of the complex relationship between language and thought. More recently he has been vying for respect among people notoriously hard to persuade about anything — politicians and their financial backers. So this summer he has been on the road promoting his new book, The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st-Century American Politics With an 18th-Century Brain (Viking), which argues that liberals have clung to the false belief that people think in a conscious, logical, and unemotional manner and that this belief has doomed Democrats' chances with voters.

But transferring scholarly ideas into political practice can be tricky. After a heady few years when he seemed the person Democratic policy makers wanted on the other end of the telephone, Lakoff is finding that what they're asking for — and are willing to put money behind — is not always what he can provide. Lakoff's foray into politics is a story marked by intellectual breakthroughs, the allure of influence, and a fall from great heights. Yet his lifetime work permeates several disciplines and continues to spur cognitive researchers to go off in new directions.

http://chronicle.com/free/v54/i49/49b00601.htm

Oil execs for McCain