Hillary's Meme

It's like I told Madeline's Dad - she may be the first, but she won't be the last.

Where Are Your Prayers, Atheist?

I knew there was something I wasn't seeing behind GWK's comments! It's not just about good wishes, it's about prayer. As you noted, G, I am an atheist; and therefore please take my remarks here to represent an extremely small segment of the American population. We're under 5% the last time I checked; Mac users have a bigger market share.

Well, obviously from this angle, my praying won't help Sen Kennedy at all. Will yours? I'm not sure. Just because I don't believe in God doesn't mean I KNOW there is no God. After all, i can't offer any physical evidence. Sure I could be wrong - my non-belief is its own way an article of faith. So I hope you can believe me when I say I don't feel superior to you because of your beliefs. More power to ya. Besides, maybe you're part of a collective good vibe, a healing energy which works in ways we don't understand yet.

Getting past the vibe scenario though, I don't think praying for a public figure would help. Einstein famously said "God doesn't play at dice;" and I'd suggest that God is also not an American Idol judge. He isn't deciding who lives or dies (or who is saved or not) by how many "votes" that guy gets. Otherwise, Regan would be alive and Carter would be dead, yes? I don't believe in him, but even if I did that would just be a crazy system.

Onto other things! I've deactivated the CAPTCHA as an exeperiement. We'll see.

Where Are Your Good Wishes, Leftie?

"Great White Knight", erstwhile commenter, wondered yesterday why it took me so long to wish Ted Kennedy a speedy recovery. I suspect there's more behind the question than simple curiousity; though the full point hasn't been revealed yet, it probably has something to do with the left having no compassion.

Well, best to just be honest then and let you make of it what you will.

Ted Kennedy, like all public figures, is a kind of abstraction to me. I don't think of him as a real flesh-and-blood person. He's a character in the vast soap opera which is political news. Intellectually I know he really exists of course. I don't imagine GWK is in a different situation either. His expression of good wishes probably had as much to do with demonstrating his compassion as it did with actual compassion. Maybe I'm wrong and GWK is emotionally invested in Ted Kennedy; in which case you have my sincere apologies sir.

Assuming I'm right though, the compulsion to publicly wish well to a public figure is something I didn't feel here. I don't feel I have to prove that I support the people that you already know I agree with. It's useless information to you. You should take it for granted. In fact, I'd regard these kinds of statements, to a degree, as grandstanding.

Of course, there is also the other side of the coin - what good does it do Ted Kennedy? Is he going to spend the coming months reading blogs to see who was nice to him? I hope not. I hope a guy in that position has better things to do. That's the kind of behavior Nixon would have engaged in, looking for the absense of comment and devising ways to get back at me.

That's it, GWK. What do you think?

I Hate You, I Hate You, I Hate You, Get Well Soon

I have to admit this - the right is a lot better about being nice when their opponents are stricken with illness. I see this point made again and again - Tony Snow gets brain cancer, the commenters at Huffpo are divided 50/50 between "I hope he gets better" and "I hope he rots in hell." Ted Kennedy gets a brain tumor and the LGF commenters are almost all "I hope he gets better. I disagree with his politics, but my prayers are with him."

I've been skimming around looking for vile Ted Kennedy comments and I've only found two - one guy buried deep in the LGF comments said "Too bad, I was betting on the liver." Insensitive but a funny line. The other was nationally syndicated columnist Michael Savage. But hey, he makes his bones offending people - he may not even MEAN it.

The positive spin for the left (and it's an awfully weak spin) is this - at least we're consistant? I mean, one thing I read today from commenter AMERIDANN on Where Are My Keys said "I have called him not only a traitor, but a murderer. I stand by those comments. (But) my prayers and my wishes go out to Senator Kennedy and his family." And this seems to be a common attitude on the right. Before this week, you didn't see an awful lot of "Senator Kennedy's policies are wrong, but I respect him as a legislator." How am I supposed to reconcile this U-Turn?

For the record, people who pilloried Tony Snow when he was well and then ridiculed him when he was sick are the worst kind of Neanderthals. Like most people, Snow is a decent guy with a difficult job who believes in what he did. It's cool to disagree with his beliefs but stupid to hate him for them. Hate, as a rule, is stupid. Try to avoid it when you can.

And for the record, good luck and best wishes to Senator Kennedy. May he get better and legislate happily for another fifty years.

A Weirdly Apropos Quote

The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern.

- Lord Acton

Some Of My Best Friends Are Racists

The Obama-demonization strategy is pretty firmly ensconced now, and has probably gotten all the traction it's going to. We knew the RNC was going to Demonize Obama, because that's how they deal with threats - they demonize 'em. Have you ever noticed that all the people to speak out against the president are fame-whores, have uncontrollable anger issues, are criminals, or just plain insane? Gosh, there has to be something WRONG with you if you disagree with us!

To summarize, Barack Obama must not be president because people he has associated with are filled with hate toward white people. Therefore he himself must hate white people too.

Oh, where do I begin?

Okay, the Wright stuff. Whatever Wright has said, no matter what you think, it doesn't follow that Obama buys it too. In fact, he's publicly repudiated it. Yet he attended the Church for so long - how could he NOT buy it? Well, there are Catholics who eat meat on Friday and practice birth control. There are Jews who drive around on Saturday not wearing those funny hats. In fact, there are lots of them. You go to Church to connect with God - sometimes you're gonna disagree with the guy giving the sermons while you're there. Does that mean you keep shopping around until you find a Pastor you agree with 100%? You tell me. I'm an Atheist.

Next this: Obama scandalously appears on the same magazine cover as Louis Farrakhan, Elijah Muhammed, Johnnie Cochrane, Luthor Vandross et all. Obviously Obama must be just like these people (Luther Vandross?) because his supporters think he is. This is a little crazy on the face of it, but let's throw a hypothetical out here, h/t to Ed Shultz. The KKK is likely to endorse John McCain and/or Hillary Clinton over Obama. So don't you want to vote for the candidate who isn't with the KKK? I mean, duh. In fact, we'll have to eventually replace ALL the white candidates now.

Still, the crazy guilt-by-association garbage is working with some people, and it's important to figure out why. There's nothing wrong with a candidate hating a group of people, as long as they're the right people. Obama says he hates nobody, but let's ignore that for now. If he hated Muslims, he'd be doing okes with us because they're our enemies after all. (All of them? Let's ignore that for now too.) If he hated homosexuals he'd still probably be just fine with the majority of Americans, who are either hetero or self-loathing closeted homos. But he's accused of hating white folks. Which I guess would include his own white half. So why is that bad?

Because it makes him uppity.

Look, I call 'em as I see 'em. This talking point at its base is a warning to black people to keep quiet or we'll make them sit at the back of the bus again, just before we throw them under it. How dare they think there is still Racism in this country? If we elect Obama, they'll never stay in their place.

Right wing readers, please please please convince me I'm wrong. I don't want to be right about this one.

Oh How I Wish...

...I had time to write.

I've Lost 15 Pounds! Ask Me How!

Don't bother asking - I'm going to tell you anyway. And at the end, you'll also learn my secret to losing weight - it's not just diet and exercise!

So this year I made this New Year's Resolution - I was going to whittle down my ectomorphic body to the recommended BMI for my height, which is 5' 8". I was, at my peak, around 180. This is the result of a lack of exercise coupled with depression and comfort-eating from my recent divorce, and my lack of a bathroom scale.

So once I bought a scale and assessed the damage, I devised a strategy. Since I worked pretty close to my apartment, about 3 miles, I decided that I could get there by bike. After all, I could either waste 12 minutes a trip driving there or I could profitably burn calories for half an hour riding. * So outfitted with the bike, a helmet, and a heart rate monitor (more out of curiosity than anything else) I commenced burnin' off that excess avoirdupois.

For the first two months, that was my whole strategy - daily exercise and more sensible eating. That helped me lose 10 pounds. Additionally I felt more alive and I've developed a nice tan, something my pale countenance needed aesthetically.

Caveats to this plan, by the way - obviously if you have a forty minute drive to work, you're screwed as far as the bike trip goes, because it'll take you around 6 hours. You can't listen to the radio because you need your ears to detect the traffic sneaking up behind you. And Canoga Park in the dead of winter, even in the middle of LA, is surprisingly cold. Antarctica cold. Mr. Freeze couldn't take that kinda cold. Bring a sweater.

Around the end of March, I realized I was stalling at around 172 pounds, 10 pounds short of my goal. Since I'm around actors all the time now (I'm in a play this month and another play next month, but I swear I'll stop after that!) weight advice is pretty easy to get. My friend Art gave me the obvious advice: "Stop with the carbs." No bread! No sugar.

These would be difficult things to give up, but my weak will power is easily trumped by my vanity so I have manged to curtail both bread and sugar with relative ease. Especially bread! My director Karen also suggested that I avoid all white foods, which is pretty weird but essentially good advice.

On the exercise and no carb program, for the last two weeks I've lost about .6 pounds a day, and as of yesterday I'm officially out of the "overweight" BMI zone and in the "normal" zone. Normal is a term of art here; we're Americans! I've been normal this whole time.

But what is the secret? I've been through this before and when someone asked me that I just sighed and said "no secret - diet and exercise." But that's not really true. Those things alone won't do it because the diet thing flies out the window when you start feeling hungry. The secret, the thing that will make you lose the weight and keep it off, is this:

Find ways to like the hunger.

That's your only hope. I'm a little hungry about half the day. I would reach for a snack normally, but I've convinced myself that mild hunger is just your body's way of telling you it's burning off the fat. Mild hunger is exercise that you don't even have to do! Extreme hunger, low-blood-sugar-fainting hunger, is a different story and you should just open up that bag of Wonder Bread and enjoy. But most of the time, listen to your body, thank it for the helpful info, and plan your trip to the beach. On a bike. And use sunscreen.

* You probably don't live so close to your job, but you may live that close to a mass transit access point! Good exercise, and you'll be reducing your carbon footprint, and you'll be ahead of the curve when gas goes up to $5.00 a gallon on Memorial Day. Ha ha, just kidding! Unless it does, in which case I'm predicting.

Damn Dirty Apes

The Evolution in Schools debate continues to fascinate me. Even as a liberal Atheist, I have to admit I see wiggle room here. After all, no scientific theory is ever completely proven. So when I hear this morning that Florida (the state located under a burning Bush) is requiring teachers to present arguments against the theory of evolution, I can't whip myself into a high dudgeon. I'm contrarian by nature; I always want both sides of the argument.

The problem, I suppose, is that we have to keep religion out of the schools. Therefore, the syllabus will have to be something like this: "Scientists suggest this happened, but others say that's impossible because of this." "Who are the others?" "Ask your parents." Which is a fine sequence, come to think of it.

The people who fought to get this into the school system are clearly hoping for an endgame in which Christian creation stories are advanced; but what about Muslims? What about Buddhists? Each of these myths differ enough that they would deserve equal time, but I don't think these guys are fighting to have Islam taught in science class. In fact, I can't imagine they would let that happen without a fight. An ugly fight. Warner Todd Huston is whipped up because he fears the encroachment of Sharia Banking Laws in the lending industry. What's he gonna say about the Koran in 3rd Grade?

Why not just teach just Christian theory in public schools? Because that gives the United States an official religion. Even if you want to ignore the plentiful constitutional language forbidding that, you only have to look at Governments who DO have an official religion to see that we're better off without one. Even the Communists, who had an official absense of religion, ran into trouble. We're in Iraq right now in part to prevent a religion-based government from forming there. Granting an exception because YOUR religion is really really cool doesn't solve the problem.

As much as I hate slippery-slope arguments (they're fear-based), dragging God into science class is a luge race to oblivion.

Happy Earth Day, Half The Country!

"It's April 22 and everybody knows today is Earth Day / Merry Christmas / Happy Birthday to whoever's being born." - Dramarama

I just want to take a moment to wish a happy day to everybody who isn't actively campaigning against environmental prudence, energy saving, and alternatives to fossil fuels which could destroy us all if they don't run out first.

Happy Earth Day to those who believe that the oil companies don't have people's best interests at heart; to those who don't think CFC bulbs are a political issue, who don't think that the majority of the worlds scientists are lying because they're liberals. Happy Earth Day to Al Gore, and to all those who don't make an issue of the fact that a guy with a bigger than average house uses more power than a guy with an average-sized house. Happy Earth Day to me, because I ride a bike to work.

Happy Earth Day to the Earth. Good luck to ya, baby.

No Happy Earth Day to the RNC Talking Points crowd, because you're trying to kill me.

Conan The Contrarian

Kudos to Arnold S*****************r *, the governer of California, for being a Republican and yet recognizing the value in easing off the fossil fuel use. He appeared on FoxNews over the weekend (HT to Crooks and Liars for the video) to explain that Republicans who deny global warming and fight green technology are missing the boat.

I think they’re just trying to protect business. And in the end, they’re hurting business. Because we’ve proven in California that you can do both, that you can protect the environment and protect business... I think people realize now, ‘wait, this does not hurt our economy, this is actually a big plus’ because we’re creating jobs through green, clean technology.

True dat, Arn. Additionally, a lot of global warming denyers somehow seem to think that only people would be troubled by climate change -- "oooooh, it's too hot here!" -- without considering that the economic effects are the real problem. It's not such a trivial thing to move a soybean farm three hundred miles north, pal. And if Allstate has to pay to replace expensive beachfront property because the ocean levels have caused seepage into that 4-car garage, then you're paying more insurance. Global warming causes inflation! Get it? That's your free-market solution.

Meanwhile businesses are the biggest user of fossil fuels, to heat their buildings and refrigerate their food and transport their goods. If we don't develop alternate energy solutions, and the price of gas keeps rising, businesses fold. Instead of being choked by regulations, they are bled by Exxon. Either way there's less competition, and prices go up. The sun has a few million years of life in it, why not tap some of that?

S*****************r * recognizes that there are incidental benefits to using energy more efficiently. He is the anti-Cheney. I'm betting the rest of the party won't pick up the message and run with it any time soon, but it's kinda like the denial of evolution and the insistance the Al-Queada was running Iraq -- it's a talking point that mainly helps Democrats because it makes the Right look a little dim-witted. So keep it up, boys, at least until November!

* I'm saving energy by not spelling it out.

The Not-So-Great Debate

You know, I don't watch debates. They are not debates in any real sense of the word. They're more like sales meetings. Candidates appear and try to look like they might be good elected officials, but they seldom answer a question straight, let alone actually debate something. It's so frustrating that I've just given up, in the same way that I've given up on trying to devine the state of the union from the State Of The Union address.

From what I'm reading though, ABC managed to find a way around my objections with Wednesday's Democratic debate. Knowing they wouldn't get substantial answers about policy questions, they simply refused to go near those kinds of topics. They avoided any topic with substance apparently. Obama got hit with a lot of questions about people he knows who aren't running for President, Hillary was asked why she kept lying so much all the time. You could boil the first 40 minutes of the debate down to variations of "You're a really bad person, aren't you?"

And the answers were variations of "No I'm not, but my opponent might be."

Eventually they settled into the usual "what would you do if..." with the usual response of "I won't exactly say, but the Republican candidate eats babies."

Listen, you won't learn ANYthing from debates except that all politics sucks. Don't bother. The ultimate goal is for you to like one of the candidates more than the other, and you can get that from sound bites. I mean in the last two elections we (probably) chose the most likeable guy running and look where it got us!

If you insist on watching a staged, prescripted, disingenuous event with voting, may I suggest AMERICAN IDOL instead?

Where's MY 40 Acres and a Mule?

African Americans tend to vote Democratic, a demographic factoid which is puzzling to Lt. Colonel Frances Rice (Ret.) of the Lincoln Heritage Institute. She has published an Open Letter to the Democratic Party demanding that they apologize for their roles in the repression of African Americans over the years. Check out some of this!

Whereas the Democratic Party has never apologized for their horrific atrocities and racist practices committed against African Americans during the past two hundred years, nor for the residual impact that those atrocities and practices and current soft bigotry of low expectations are having on us today,

Whereas the Democratic Party fought to expand slavery and, after the Civil War, established Jim Crow Laws, Black Codes and other repressive legislation that were designed to disenfranchise African Americans,

Whereas the Ku Klux Klan was the terrorist arm of the Democratic Party, and their primary goal was to intimidate and terrorize African American voters, Republicans who moved South to protect African Americans and any other whites who supported them...

Yikes! And without doing any of the research myself, I expect that she's right. First of all, about asking for an apology. We can afford to apologize, because we stopped acting that way (with the possible exception of Sen. Robert Byrd) around the mid-sixties. We could admit the mistakes, point out the good works we've done since, and pry away the remaining 45 Black Republicans.

Nowadays, white Republicans are in almost utter denial that there's any racial problem in America. They're furious that we're still running affirmative action programs, they're enraged that African Americans percieve that they're still being kept down. How dare they! While we Democrats are falling over ourselves to be good to the people that America kidnapped and made to build our nation, Republicans nowadays have decided that we have done enough and it's time for those ingrates to stop whining and climb the corporate ladder. Which will be easy because nowadays, there isn't any racism.

The white Republicans were pretty good to African Americans for a hundred years or so there, from a little before Lincoln to a little before Nixon. Then it seemed to turn around. That's when they started saying, "Why is that guy getting breaks I'm not getting? Why should I have to have some kind of artificial barrier to prevent me from competing fairly, while another guy HAS to be considered because of the color of his skin?" The answer, of course, is that it's a corrective to unconcious racism, but they keep saying there isn't any such thing.

Look, I'm sorry you guys aren't getting the credit you deserve for your century of progress. Seriously. But voters can't re-elect Lincoln. I'm not black, but if I were I'd be considering what you've done for me LATELY when casting my ballot. And as a white guy who doesn't want to be surrounded by dissatisfied African Americans, I'm sticking with the Democrats, guilty and backpedaling as nobly as they can.

Learning the Lessons of the Cold War

Here's a scary thought.

I was having my usual argument about the efficacy of the war in Iraq. My opponent argued that being there somehow prevents attacks on our own soil. Even if that were true I said it's a 3 trillion dollar insurance policy against a couple million dollars damage.

But you know what? If you're a terrorist that's a great strategy! By funneling more and more of our assets into Iraq, we're devoting less to public services and infrastructure. You remember when we had fewer national guard troops and equipment for the aftermath of Katrina? That was the terrorists hitting a major American city. The weak economy? Terrorists striking a blow.

Sure it puts the terrorists all the way up into the coveted evil-genius Fu Manchu class, but they're not all stupid. In fact if they're not smart enough to see this plan themselves, they're hardly a threat. Even if we dismantle our own government without them being in on it the effect is the same.

We won the cold war without a middle missle being fired. It was enough to force the communists to spend more on missles than they could afford. Its possible that our enemies will accomplish the same spending pennies to our dollars.

They Might Be Giants Writes Exxon Slogan

I heard on the news today that the rising price of deisel gasoline is hurting students. Since the busses have to run, schools are taking the money out of books and pencils and teachers salaries.

Exxon - "We Don't Want the World; We Just Want Your Half."

My, That George Bush Fellah is Evil

So this morning Bush announced that he was going to both withdraw the surge by summer AND reduce the time soldiers are out in the field back to 12 months, both on the advice of the commanders in... I dunno, sub-chief? He also announced that he will hold the line on any further withdrawals until Petreus and company can evaluate the situation caused by the first set of withdrawals.

Interestingly, NPR's hourly newscast is emphasizing the last point, that Bush is refusing to consider further withdrawls at present. Could be liberal bias, could be that they consider that the real news since we knew he was going to say the other stuff.

Bush also whined about the next emergency war funding bill, saying that unless Congress met his conditions for it he would veto it. I think that when Bush whines about stuff, he really believes it. It's when he's not whining that he's lying. The whining is his way of saying, "you idiots! Why are you fighting me on this? I'm right!" I gotta admire a man who so doesn't accept compromise that he's willing to underfund his own war in order to get his way. There's your rejection of nuance!

By the way, how is this an emergency? Were they planning on the war being over when they did the regular budget?

I think Bush made a good point about the need to keep troops in until we have defeated the terrorists. If we withdraw, they will be emboldened. But if we don't and we don't "defeat" them, they will also be emboldened. And the terrorist aren't likely to throw in the towel any time soon, because they're terrorists.

And how did poor Iraq get in this situation, with us taking over their country to lure terrorists away from our own soil and thus fight them there? Isn't that the worst possible foreign relations move? I'm deliberately ignoring the point in the narrative where we claimed to be invading Iraq because they were harboring the 9/11 attackers. Because they stopped saying that for a long time and only recently started saying it again.

It was amusing to hear the President say that 15 months ago we were on the defensive... I don't recollect that kind of assessment coming out of 1600 Pennsylvania 15 months ago. As I recall, victory was just around the corner back then. Well, the corner must be pretty damn vast.

======================================

Almost forgot my most important point! Why is Bush willing to draw down the troops? That's not like him!

Well, maybe even he recognizes that if he doesn't want to be the one to start up the draft again, he's going to need to get his Iran invasion force from somewhere. He's got till the end of the year to crank up THAT machine, and from the speech I'm guessing it's going to be sooner rather than later. Maybe that's the emergency which will postpone elections. Still too early to tell. I'm keeping some money on a bird flu epidemic.

Quit Whining About Liberal Media Bias!

I'll steal some numbers from Glen Greenwald, because they speak for themselves.

In the past two weeks, the following events transpired. A Department of Justice memo, authored by John Yoo, was released which authorized torture and presidential lawbreaking. It was revealed that the Bush administration declared the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights to be inapplicable to "domestic military operations" within the U.S. The U.S. Attorney General appears to have fabricated a key event leading to the 9/11 attacks and made patently false statements about surveillance laws and related lawsuits. Barack Obama went bowling in Pennsylvania and had a low score.
Here are the number of times, according to NEXIS, that various topics have been mentioned in the media over the past thirty days:"Yoo and torture" - 102
"Mukasey and 9/11" -- 73
"Yoo and Fourth Amendment" -- 16
"Obama and bowling" -- 1,043
"Obama and Wright" -- More than 3,000 (too many to be counted)
"Obama and patriotism" - 1,607
"Clinton and Lewinsky" -- 1,079

I'm begging, BEGGING, Warner Todd Huston to explain how this proves the media has a liberal bias. I know you can do it, Warner!

My Life As A Trendspotter

When I wrote that thing about the right wing's weird support of any issue that helps the oil companies, even I didn't see this coming. 

"the story will center around all our favorite Muppets producing a show to raise money to save their old theater. They need the money, of course, because an 'evil character' is trying to buy the building so that he might tear it down to "get at the oil underneath." Why is it we have to turn everything into an anti-capitalism, anti-oil hatefest?"

Warner also helpfully supplies addresses, so you can write to Jim Henson co and, I guess, demand that the Muppets let the capitalist drill. What he's failing to understand is that, as sponges-rubber based puppets, the Muppets would inevitably absorb oil spills. And have you ever tried to clean oil out of a sponge? They'd never be the same again.

By the way, if you think I'm anti-capitalist, here's the deal with stories of this kind: The Muppets are raising money to RETAIN PROPERTY THEY ALREADY HAVE. The oil company is trying to take advantage of a perceived weakness. To support the oil company in this story is to support the practice of big Oil stealing the property of hard-working Americans for their own profits. Of course, legitimately they could be fighting eviction by OSHA because that theatre is in pretty bad shape. I bet those stairs are unsafe.

They Shot The Wad On Clinton

Before I start let me both apologize for and elicit applause for the abominable headline. Hey, I'm a blogger - you've seen worse. If I don't sicken and offend you at least once in a while, I might as well be writing for CNN.

Barack Obama is in a fascinating position right now, because it seems that everything is conspiring to get him elected President of the United States. Let's look at historical trending first. With the president's approval rating at constant lows, with the economy doing not so well, the usual drumbeat for "change" is louder than it's been in a long time. Visually, Barack Obama represents change more than the other candidates. (You know what I mean. Don't pretend you don't.) Plus, he neither is promising to extend an unpopular war for the next hundred years, nor is he the wife of someone who held the office for the sleaziest eight years in recent memory.

Next, his opponents. There has been an historical blunder committed by the usually skilled Republicans, and it is gonna cost 'em. For a long time now, they have assumed that Hillary Clinton was going to be the Democratic nominee. I mean a long time, like a couple of months after they pretended George Bush was elected. *rimshot* So for seven years now, they've been demonizing Hillary Clinton. She swindled her Whitewater investors, she killed Vince Foster, she's the antichrist, she has an annoying laugh. They can produce volumes of rumors at the drop of a hat proving that Hillary Clinton flew the planes that hit the World Trade Center towers. Really. Ask a Republican some time.

It's a well-oiled machine, it's been running like a juggernaut for a long time, and it's worked! Unhappily, too soon. It's supposed to be kicking into high gear now that Hillary is the presumptive Democratic nominee, but she isn't. They made her such a monster that America turned to the good-lookin' tabula rasa instead. Hillary! as she's known among the wingnuts for reasons I've never had fully explained, is taking on water fast.

So now, the Republicans are scrambling to find ways to demonize Obama, and they just don't have the research. They've tried insinuating that he's Saddam Hussein, they've tried claiming that people who vote for him are hypnotized (oh, that's an effective way to swing voters - tell them they're stupid) and lately they're demonizing his pastor, because everyone knows you blindly believe everything your pastor tells you.  Not everyone does; just the black folk. Uh oh.

The race thing is a real minefield for Republicans, who have to avoid the one easy arrow in the quiver: If you elect Obama, he'll give the country to the darkies! So they're stumbling. And because their attacks have been so week, Obama looks even better than Hillary by comparison. 

Meanwhile, Hillary has been spoiling for a fight for eight years herself. She's armed herself to the rhetorical teeth. The only way she knows how to campaign is to fight dirty, which would have been great if she were against McCain, but she's using it against our own guy. Instead, as a result, she looks strident and overambitious and prepared to bring down the party to feed her lust for power. Thus Obama is the only un-scary candidate, and after a constant desert of orange alerts and shoe-bombers, the country badly wants to feel un-scared right now. Obama is our national oasis.

A change in strategy from either Clinton or the entire right-wing machine could put Obama in a worse position, but I don't think anyone is capable of correcting their course at this stage. Obama has been criticized for being vague and for saying little. Can you blame him? Every time someone else opens their mouth, he looks better and better. He is the jujitsu candidate, using the force of his opponent's blows to topple them.

NRG - Norquist Regales GOP

I was at a dinner party last night, and a friend of mine said she was taken with this story about right-leaning politicians fighting for our right to choose - light bulbs. How odd that this would become an issue to tear our congress people away from the war on terror, or the struggle to prevent gay marriage, abortion, and Arabs! 

Indeed, energy issues are a fascinating extremist litmus test for the Republicans. Their argument against CFC bulbs, for example, is that they contain mercury and therefore are bad for the environment. When have you ever heard a Republican passionately defending the environment against a manufacturer such as General Electric?  By the way, a typical thermometer has ten times the mercury, so where's the horror at their use?

Almost all scientists agree that there is a global warming problem caused by man's use of fossil fuels, but the wingnuts (term of endearment, boys) believe the handful of contrarians who happen to work for the fossil fuel companies. Dick Cheney takes office, has a mysterious summit with, oh, no one that you'd be interested in, and emerges with our nations energy policy: quit wasting so much money on R&D and use more coal and oil. 

The right wing's position, as I read it, is "We must waste as much energy as possible to stay competitive." Which is arguably a valid position. 

IF YOU WORK FOR AN OIL COMPANY.

For the rest of us, it means taking money we'd be saving by using wind power and solar power, and giving it to Big Energy instead. They'll remain competitive, we'll all suffer. Already one of the chief causes of inflation is the price of transporting everything, because the cost of gas keeps crawling up. Sometimes it leaps.

And once in a while when I'm venturing onto right wing blogs, I'll complain about how these tax cuts are hurting the country, and they'll respond "we need to cut social programs." When I suggest that maybe we could also stand to eliminate some tax breaks to Exxon and company because they're achieving record profits, my right wing friends turn strangely silent. Perhaps they don't have the energy to speak.

So here's my theory. Grover Norquist, the creepy old guy in that smoke filled room in New York where the X-Files old men used to hang out, is getting his money from the Oil Companies. In turn, he's encouraging pro-big-energy opinion around the offices of Fox and NewsMax, which filters down to my favorite right wing blogs. They write their pro-coal-industry editorials, then set down a piece about how the unions and the trial lawyers control the left. What do you think?