Reasons for a beer today

It's the Winter Solstice today. The hours of daylight now begin to increase.

And ...

There are less than 30 days until George Bush leaves the White House.

Two reasons for a beer!

Engagement is NOT appeasement.

"Engagement is not appeasement. Diplomacy is not retreat."

So said Republican Senator Chuck Hagel. Speaking at the Johns Hopkins School of AdvancedInternational Studies, he continued:

There is always going to be a certain know-nothing element to democracy. That is their choice. But in a world that is so vitally interconnected, it does help if you try to understand the other side.

More here.

Talking to your enemies: a strategy to consider as the world is about to confront a nuclear Iran. Anything would be better than the current US government's actual strengthening of Iran.

Veterans' Day

Thank a veteran today .. and honor the memories of all before ... and work for the improvement of all veterans' health care now.

VeteransForAmerica.org

Tickets to the Inauguration

A disgusting but expected thing: scammers and scalpers may already be wreaking their mischief on the Inauguration.

The public should also be aware that no website or other ticket outlet actually has inaugural swearing-in tickets to sell, regardless of what they may claim.

Tickets can only be attained from your US Senator or Congressman.

The tickets are free; they will not be distributed to Congressional offices until the week before the inauguration; they will require in-person pick-up.

Tickets to the 56th Inaugural Ceremonies will be provided free of charge and distributed through Members of the 111th Congress. The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies does not provide tickets to the public. Members of the public interested in attending the Inaugural Ceremonies should contact their Member of Congress or U.S. Senators to request tickets.

How to Get Inauguration Tickets
DCist.com
6 November, 2008

Watching history

I Twitter-ed watching the election results. [Twitter may have been overwhelmed; some of my posts appeared out of the order in which I had texted them. So I've reordered them in the order I actually had sent them. Typos abound: forgive my thumbs.]

Time to open the Lagavulin now
11:41 PM

I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD SEE THE DAY
11:02 PM

NBC calls Pennsylvania for Obama. Obama now at 103 to 34 for McCain.
10:49 PM

Enjoying a Small Craft Warning Uber Pils watching --hopefully-- the arrival of a storm of change. Come on, Virginia.
10:45 PM

NBC JUST has called Virginia for Obama!
10:57 PM

Obama starting to pull ahead in Va: 1,538,629 to McCain's 1,481,403. 51-49%. I sooo want my state to be the one for "that one".
10:48 PM

Inn Virginia. As of 10 PM, 50%-49% Obama over McCain. 13,000 vote difference with 83% of precincts reported.
10:14 PM

Twitter VERY slow tonight ... but holding up.
10:03 PM

Go Virginia! By 10 AM 50% of all registerd voters -including absentee- had voted.
10 PM

Obama goes ahead for first time this evening. At 9:54 its 1,312,072 to McCain's 1,299,987 with 80% 0recincts reporting.
9:50 PM

NBC says Ohio goes to Obama.
9:25 PM

Most Hillary supporters in Pennsylvania voted for Obama. Yes maam!
8:11 PM

retweet @PostVoteMonitor Obama's Dead Grandmother's Vote Still Counts: http://twurl.nl/knx7se
7:33 PM

Related posts:

• PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA
• My Vote

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

I never thought I would see the day.

There are red states; there are blue states.

But there is only one UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

• Voting
• [UPDATE: Watching History]

My vote

Coffee brewed and getting ready to leave for polls. Chair, book, coat, umbrella. And photo ID.
-- 5 AM

Taking my 82 year young mother who had her hair done yesterday so she'd look good for Obama.
-- 7 AM

One hour and 20 minute wait at Poll. [So said an exiting voter.]
-- 7:10 AM

A through K line is maybe 5x the size of the L through Z line. Why dont they subdivide the line? Falls Church VA.
-- 8 AM

Done! Voted! Brief hiccup with optical scanner machine. OK now. Hour and 10 minute wait. Fairfax, VA
8:30 AM

I blogged in real time on Twitter.

Exit Exit Polls, stage left

Thanks to Nate Silver at www.fivethirtyeight.com I've learned much about polling data and technique in the last 5 months. Aggregating and analyzing most major polling data, Mr. Silver has had a better predictive track record in the primaries —and so far in the campaign— than any one major polling service, network, or print news organization.

And he's a sports statistician by trade!

Mr. Silver had this to say today about exit polls, and why we should ignore them, and backed up his position with 9 arguments.

an exit poll is not a definitive record of what happened at the polling place; it is at best a random sampling.

His 10th point was a plea for sanity patience:

You'll know the actual results soon enough anyway.

Here's his prediction for the election:

Our model projects that Obama will win all states won by John Kerry in 2004, in addition to Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, Ohio, Virginia, Nevada, Florida and North Carolina, while narrowly losing Missouri and Indiana. These states total 353 electoral votes. Our official projection, which looks at these outcomes probabilistically -- for instance, assigns North Carolina's 15 electoral votes to Obama 59 percent of the time -- comes up with an incrementally more conservative projection of 348.6 electoral votes.

We also project Obama to win the popular vote by 6.1 points; his lead is slightly larger than that in the polls now, but our model accounts for the fact that candidates with large leads in the polls typically underperform their numbers by a small margin on Election Day.

What you need - to vote in Virginia

Here is a guidebook in a pdf file listing the requirements for voting in person in Virginia.

Go to http://maps.google.com/vote to see where your voting polls are located.

Redskins lose, Obama wins?

As it turns out, the Washington Redskins football team have been a very accurate predictor of US presidential elections.

Whenever the Redskins lose their last home game played before a national election the party in power loses. And, vice versa, if the Redskins win, the challenging party wins.

This prognosticating record began in 1936, when the team was still the Boston Redskins. From Snopes.com:

On 1 November 1936 the Boston Redskins downed the Chicago Cardinals at Fenway Park, 13-10, predicting a win for the incumbent Democrats. Two days later, President Franklin D. Roosevelt won re-election over Republican Governor Alf Landon of Kansas.

I am a Redskins fan. They play the Pittsburgh Steelers tonight, at home at FedEx Field. It should be a Hobson's Choice for me. Either the 'Skins lose or Obama loses.

But not to worry. Recent history has refuted this football augur. Again from Snopes.com:

Reality finally trumped coincidence in 2004: Despite the Green Bay Packers' 28-14 defeat of the Redskins at the latter's home field on 31 October, presaging a victory for Democratic challenger John Kerry in upcoming the presidential election, two days later incumbent President George W. Bush was re-elected, breaking the Redskins' predictive pattern.

Go Redskins!

[UPDATE 2008.11.03: The Washington Redskins lose to Pittsburgh Steelers 23-6. So, there's a 97% chance that Republicans and John McCain will lose the presidential election.]

Report voting problems and successes

The Washington Post has set up a page at which to report on voting experiences on Tuesday 4 November. It's projects.washingtonpost.com/2008/vote-monitor.

And, follow breaking elections stories from the Post on Twitter at: twitter.com/PostVoteMonitor.

Beagles for Obama!

There is no false Virginia; there is no real Virginia.

There is ... the Commonwealth of Virginia.

No matter whom one votes for.

... except if you're a Communist, says brother Joe McCain.

McCain falls behind; no, wait, he surges to a draw.

24 hours, 2 polls, 2 diametrically opposed results.

Reuters says:

Democrat Barack Obama's lead over Republican rival John McCain has grown to 12 points in the U.S. presidential race, with crucial independent and women voters increasingly moving to his side, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Thursday.

With less than two weeks before the November 4 election, Obama leads McCain 52 percent to 40 percent among likely voters in the latest three-day tracking poll, which had a margin of error of 2.9 points.

Obama has made steady gains over the last four days and has tripled his lead on McCain in the past week of polling.

"Obama's expansion is really across the board," pollster John Zogby said. "It seems to be among almost every demographic group."

Obama lead on McCain grows to 12 points
Reuters
Thu Oct 23, 2008

But less than 24 hours earlier, AP said:

The presidential race tightened after the final debate, with John McCain gaining among whites and people earning less than $50,000, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll that shows McCain and Barack Obama essentially running even among likely voters in the election homestretch.

The poll, which found Obama at 44 percent and McCain at 43 percent, supports what some Republicans and Democrats privately have said in recent days: that the race narrowed after the third debate as GOP-leaning voters drifted home to their party and McCain's "Joe the plumber" analogy struck a chord.

Three weeks ago, an AP-GfK survey found that Obama had surged to a seven-point lead over McCain, lifted by voters who thought the Democrat was better suited to lead the nation through its sudden economic crisis.

AP presidential poll: Race tightens in final weeks
Associated Press
Wed Oct 22, 2008

No poll results have been reported from the US Supreme Court.

It was a very good year

Today is my day for my year ... of the glass half-full and the glass half-empty.

To offer commentary, here's —philosopher and singer— William Shatner, from the early 1970s on the Mike Douglas Show.

... with my apologies to Frank Sinatra.



Keep passing the open windows, and stand clear of the closing doors.

Schadenfreude and beer

From the Washington Post, Sunday 28 September, p. A3:

While New York City has

enjoyed the fruits of Wall Street's decade of dizzying success <...> for many, who didn't share in the spoils, there is a certain sense of schadenfreude — enjoying the new misery of the formerly wealthy.
<..>
"It's going to take their breath away, because they're going to have to deal with the reality that all the rest of us do. I think there's going to be a lot of people on the therapist's couch — a very typical New York thing. People are going to start drinking a lot."

Schadenfreude indeed. Sometimes it is about the beer.

In DC, a sad day for books & records

From olssons.com:

Olsson Enterprises, Inc., trading as Olsson's Books & Records, Record & Tape Ltd., and Olsson's Books announced today that it has closed all of its locations and petitioned the U.S. Bankruptcy Court District of Maryland for conversion of its current Chapter 11 protection to Chapter 7.

The reasons given for the petitioning were stagnant sales, low cash reserves, and an inability to renegotiate current leases, along with a continuing weak retail economy and plummeting music sales.<..>

Olsson's was established in 1972 and grew to as many as nine retail stores in the Washington, D.C. metro area with sales over $16 million a year and as many as 200 employees. Currently there are five retail stores: Reagan National Airport, Old Town Alexandria, Arlington Courthouse, Crystal City, and one in Northwest Washington at Dupont Circle. Olsson's earned its reputation as a locally-owned community-oriented retailer with a knowledgeable staff selling a wide selection of books, music, video and gifts. <..>

John Olsson, principal owner, Washington native and graduate of Catholic University had this to say, "Although it is certainly a sad day for us, I can rejoice in all the great memories of my life in retail in Washington. I began at Discount Record Shop on Connecticut Avenue in the fall of 1958, and worked there until 1972 when I left to open my own record store at 1900 L Street. Along the way books were added, more locations, a couple thousand employees, and many thousands of customers. It was exhilarating.

• Post your memories here.
• I was alerted to this announcement by the Washington Post's IT columnist Rob Pegoraro, at his Twitter site.

Spinning the prez debate

Results from a CNN poll of television viewers of last evening's presidential candidate's debate in Mississippi between Senators Obama and McCain had

Obama winning overall by a margin of 51-38. The poll suggests that Obama is opening up a gap on connectedness, while closing a gap on readiness.

Specifically, by a 62-32 margin, voters thought that Obama was “more in touch with the needs and problems of people like you”. This is a gap that has no doubt grown because of the financial crisis of recent days. But it also grew because Obama was actually speaking to middle class voters. Per the transcript, McCain never once mentioned the phrase “middle class” (Obama did so three times).

And Obama’s eye contact was directly with the camera, i.e. the voters at home. McCain seemed to be speaking literally to the people in the room in Mississippi, but figuratively to the punditry.

In a reversal of previous results, the same poll showed that the debate watchers

thought that Obama “seemed to be the stronger leader” by a 49-43 margin

The best line of the evening didn't take place during the debate. It belonged to Fox News bloviator Sean Hannity:

"Unfortunately, I think Obama won this debate," said Dick Morris on Hannity and Colmes.

"I don't know which debate you were watching, Dick," said Sean Hannity. "It was book knowledge."

Book knowledge! Fahrenheit 451 all over again, eh Sean?

another abrogation

Substitute Commander-in-Chief for Secretary (of the Treasury) and there's a frightening sense of deja-vu to the 1-trillion dollar* bail-out bill as submitted by the Bush administration.

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

Paulson's Folly
American Spectator
Robert Kuttner
22 September 2008

Mr. Paulson and Mr. Bush: You ask us to allow you to take the US from democratic capitalism to nationally socialized business. Your proposal is a startling alteration to the basic structure of our economy.

Why no oversight?

And, as Fishbowl DC said:

Sorry New York: last week proved that Washington is the financial capital of the world.

* The oft-quoted figure of 700 billion dollars, officials admit, is only guess. Nobody knows.

Socialism

We're told: We need smaller government, we need less regulation. That is, until greed and catastrophe threaten to ravel the warp and woof of the nation. Then we're told that we must privatize profits and socialize the risk. How ironic it is that

George W. Bush, champion of privatizing the Social Security program, decides to socialize the U.S. financial system instead.

But who will pay the 1 trillion dollar price tag?

We will, to some extent. But most of that debt will fall to our children and theirs. And that's a threat to the moral fabric of the nation.

More from Notions Capital.

Priorities?

A memorial in Falls Church, Va. to 9/11 victims has been removed ―by the artist― after complaints ...

... complaints about nudity.

"The Dust Cries Out," built by Northern Virginian artist Karen Swenholt, was installed Sept. 8 on Great Falls Street in Falls Church. It features two life-size nude figures resembling the dust-covered survivors of the Twin Towers collapse, with arms reaching toward the sky.

Mrs. Swenholt, 54, says she received permission to place the statue on a lot next to her home that is owned by VDOT.

But little more than a week later, the Northern Virginia Fairfax Permits Office told Mrs. Swenholt that it had received complaints from neighborhood residents about the nudity. The office also told her she had not obtained a proper permit.

Critics, threat mar 9/11 statue
Sculptor takes display home
Michael Drost THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Thursday, September 18, 2008

Go here to see photos and my earlier post about the statue and the anonymous note left at its base.

Beagles for Obama

Ethel Mae shows her preference.

Beagles for Obama
Originally uploaded by cizauskas

Business Socialism

My Republican friends tell me: you liberals, you just want to redistribute wealth, you just expect government handouts.

Robert Reich —Secretary of Labor under President Clinton— had the proper response, which he wrote this Monday on his blog, before the US government takeover of AIG.

a free-market-loving Republican administration is presiding over the most ambitious intrusion of government into the market in almost anyone's memory.

It's socialism for the wealthy, for business.

As to what to do instead, or rather to forestall this in the future, Reich continued:

Not to socialize capitalism with bailouts and subsidies that put taxpayers at risk. If what's lacking is trust rather than capital, the most important steps policymakers can take are to rebuild trust. And the best way to rebuild trust is through regulations that require financial players to stand behind their promises and tell the truth, along with strict oversight to make sure they do.

We tell poor nations they have to make their financial markets transparent before capital will flow to them. Now it's our turn.

Why Wall Street is Melting Down, and What to Do About It

Hurricane relief (and a useful charity resource)

A good resource for matching donation to need.

Putting lipstick on the pig (the post-convention bounce, that is)

538.com has offered up an interesting analysis of the post-convention (ok, Palin) bump for McCain.

He is indeed up ... but most of that gain is in strong Republican base areas. He/she is appealing to those states where the Republicans should have already been strong. A better measure of tracking the election will be available at the end of September, when the convention speeches will be gauzy memories.

the popular vote and the Electoral College are significantly diverging. Although the Republicans seem to be polling stronger than they were in the pre-convention period almost everywhere, the differences are much larger in traditionally red states, particularly in the South and the rural West (Colorado and Nevada, by the way, are not rural states).
<...>

McCain's gain in our popular vote projection has been 2.1 points. Note, however, that his gains have been less than that in essentially all of the most important swing states, including Ohio, Michigan, Florida, Colorado, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. Only Virginia is on the other side of the line, and then only barely so.

As a result of all this, the Electoral College remains too close to call, even though McCain has a 1-2 point advantage in the popular vote.

That last sentence points to a potential Electoral College situation in which that anachronistic system could again trump democracy:

Obama now has an 8.4 percent chance of winning the Electoral College while losing the popular vote, which is far and away the highest that this number has been all year. And that number may get larger rather than smaller, once polling filters in from other red states like Texas, Nebraska and South Carolina.

The 538 of the site's name refers to the total number of Electoral College votes. Assuming only McCain and Obama win the electoral votes —not a Constitutional given, by the way, but that's a discussion for another day— the magic number for victory is 270.

The Dust Cries Out

The Dust Cries Out
Originally uploaded by cizauskas

Walking the dogs this morning, I stopped to view The Dust Cries Out, a sculpture, only erected this week, commemorating the victims of the 9/11/01 attacks.

The sculpture can be found at the city limits of Falls Church, Va.

Then ... I saw this note which had been placed by someone on the back base of the sculpture.
[UPDATE 2008.09.14: Local coverage at Blueweeds, a Falls Church, Va. blog.]

[UPDATE 2008.09.18: Statue removed over neighborhood complaints of nudity.]

Remembering

I was having a cup of coffee in the living room of my rowhouse in Baltimore, Md. On the television set was the ABC network's morning show. That was much to the vexation of my stepdaughter, who would have preferred the more appropriate Clifford the Big Red Dog.

It was 8:45 in the morning; she and I would soon be walking to her school.

A breaking news report interrupted the program.

My stepdaughter remained home that day with my wife and me.

It was September 11, 2001.

Remembering.

"Iron my shirt," part 2

Seantor Hillary Clinton and Governor Sarah Palin. "What if," Anne E. Kornblut asks in the Washington Post, "the roles had been reversed?"

What if, back in the 1990s, Clinton had announced the pregnancy of an unmarried, teenaged daughter? Would the Republicans have declared it an off-limits family matter and declined to judge her, or would it have turned into a national scandal that hurt her chances as she decided to pursue her own career in elected office?

What if, instead of the GOP's new vice presidential candidate, Clinton had been the one to run for national office without any international experience to speak of? (After all, Clinton's rivals diminished the relevance of her eight years as first lady, saying they counted for little on her résumé.)

And what if Clinton had rejected questions about her record by calling such lines of questioning sexist? What if she had refused to name any national security decisions she had made, as a spokesman for Sen. John McCain did on Palin's behalf last week, on the grounds that the question was unfair?

A 12 billion dollar victory?

Senator Obama appeared last week on Bill O'Reilly's program on the Fox network.

O'Reilly, ostentatiously using big words like "perspicacious", behaved like, well, O'Reilly: "Why won't you say 'I was wrong about the surge,'" he badgered and interrupted.

Obama politely responded: Despite the surge, "the Iraqis still have not taken responsibility. We [the US] are spending $10-12 billion dollars per month."

Gustav: so far, so-so good

In New Orleans, it's so far so-so good, but remembering that the city's submersion three years ago occurred after Katrina had moved past, any assessment of the city's current safety needs to wait. The fate of the neighboring lands is not so good.

NEW ORLEANS - A weakened Hurricane Gustav slammed into the heart of Louisiana's fishing and oil industry Monday, avoiding a direct hit on flood-prone New Orleans and boosting hope that the city would avoid catastrophic flooding.

Wind-driven water was sloshing over the top of the Industrial Canal's floodwall, but city officials and the Army Corps of Engineers said they expected the levees, still only partially rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina, would hold. <..>

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Gustav hit around 10:30 a.m. EDT Monday near the Cocodrie, a low-lying community in Louisiana's Cajun country about 72 miles southwest of New Orleans. <...>

While New Orleans avoided a direct hit, the storm could be devastating where it did strike. For most of the past half century, the bayou communities that thrived in the Barataria basin have watched their land literally disappear. A combination of factors — oil drilling, hurricanes, river levees, damming of rivers — have destroyed marshes and swamps that once flourished in this river delta.

Entire towns in the basin of the Mississippi delta have disappeared because of land loss. The rates of loss are among the highest in the world; erosion has left it with virtually no natural buffer.

Associated Press
12:30PM
1 September 2008

Sarah 'Connor' Palin

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, Senator McCain's choice for Vice-President, appears to have high quotients of political smarts and personal integrity. She counters the youth and good looks of Senator Obama campaign with the same for the Republican side.

But I disagree diametrically with many of her views.

And her elevation to vice-presidential candidate removes the foreign affairs experience —or lack thereof— debate from the table, for both sides.

PS. The Sarah 'Connor' allusion is to the gun-toting heroine who saves humanity in the sci-fi movie Terminator.

A right-er gets it right

Here's President Clinton last night at the Democratic Convention:

[In 1992] We prevailed in a campaign in which the Republicans said I was too young and too inexperienced to be commander in chief. <...> Sound familiar? It didn't work in 1992, because we were on the right side of history. And it won't work in 2008, because Barack Obama is on the right side of history.

Sometimes the political right can get it right. Here's Peggy Noonan, President Reagan's speechwriter, writing this morning in the Wall Street Journal:

This was Deft Political Pro Bill doing what no one had been able to do up to this point at the convention, and that is make the case for Barack Obama. He lambasted the foe, asserted Obama's growth on the trail, argued that he was the right man for the job and did that as a man who once held that job and is remembered, at least in terms of domestic policy and at least by half the country, as having done it pretty darn well.

Here's an excerpt from Senator Hillary Clinton on Tuesday evening:

I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me? <...Or> Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible? <...>

My mother was born before women could vote. But in this election my daughter got to vote for her mother for president.

Here are Noonan's comments on that Tuesday speech, and on Hillary's stunningly gracious suspension of the roll call vote yesterday:

The Hillary speech was the best of her career. Toward Obama she was exactly as gracious as she is capable of being. <...> she proved herself the most gifted pol on the prompter in current political history.

The decision to put Obama over the top and ask for acclamation? Masterly. Mrs. Clinton's actions this week have been pivotal not only for Obama, but for her.

She showed herself capable of appearing to put party first. <...> And that, for her, is a brilliant move. Really: brilliant. Here's one reason: Teddy [Kennedy] is, throughout his party, beloved. Beloved would be something very new for Hillary.

And, Noonan on Senator Kennedy, ill with cancer, showing grit and grace on Tuesday:

[Ted Kennedy's speech] was a small masterpiece of generosity. Not only that he showed up, not only that he spoke, but that with every right to speak of himself and his career, with every right to speak about his family and his memories and the lessons he's learned and the great things he's seen, with all the right to dwell on those things he produced: a speech about Barack Obama. Telling America to vote for him. How classy was that? Very.

In his speech last evening, President Clinton delivered a powerful rhetorical construction (worthy of Noonan, by the way). It may have been a denunciation of Bush/Cheney's go-it-alone international calamity of the last 8 years, and, ironically, it may have been a personal excoriation. But it offered a sense of hope and, yes, change, for the next 4, if not 8 years.

People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of power.

I'll finish with the finish from HRC's speech:

Even in the darkest of moments, ordinary Americans have found the faith to keep going. This is the story of America. Of women and men who defy the odds and never give up.<...>

That is our duty, to build that bright future, and to teach our children that in America there is no chasm too deep, no barrier too great — and no ceiling too high — for all who work hard, never back down, always keep going, have faith in God, in our country, and in each other.

Wake Up, America

It's Election Day 2008. We Democrats are giving America a wake-up call. <..>

If there was an Olympics for misleading, mismanaging and misappropriating, this administration would take the gold. World records for violations of national and international laws. They want another four-year term to continue to alienate our allies, spend our children's inheritance and hollow out our economy. <...>

We can't afford another Republican administration. Wake up, America. Wake up, America. Wake up, America.

The rest of the speech delivered by Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio at the Democratic National Convention, Tuesday 26 August.

The hope still lives

And may it be said of us, both in dark passages and in bright days, in the words of Tennyson that my brothers quoted and loved, and that have special meaning for me now:

"I am a part of all that I have met
To [Tho] much is taken, much abides
That which we are, we are --
One equal temper of heroic hearts
Strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

Ted Kennedy, at the Democratic Convention 1980.

And here, his peroration as delivered last night at the 2008 Convention in Denver in advocacy of Barack Obama, and ever resonant for the better angels of America:

The work begins anew, the hope rises again, and the dream lives on.

Ahh, Teddy.

Obama/Biden

Congratulations to Senator Barack Obama on his selection of Senator Joe Biden as his Vice-Presidential running mate.

Senator Biden's passion, smarts (foreign affairs), and experience bode well for electoral victory, and for crucial benefit to the nation come 20 January 2009.

With the feral Rove/McCain smear hounds unleashed, Obama needed a pit bull to cover his flank.

If only "clean" Joe Biden can think first and speak later, it may prove to be a great choice for Obama ... second only to having selected Senator Hillary Clinton.

Fast times with hydrogen car

A local official in northern Virginia recently employed a unique method to demonstrate proof of concept for 'green driving'.

Falls Church City Council Member Dan Sze became the first local official in the country to drive the Honda Clarity - the world's first series production hydrogen fuel cell automobile <...> he was promptly stopped by a Park Police officer after being clocked going three times the posted speed limit. <..>"people are not about to take a hydrogen car seriously until it gets treated like a real car."

The rest of the story at Blueweeds.

An award; activists fight sprawl in Nevada

Carol Cizauskas and I have the same last name. In fact, we are sister and brother.

Ms. Cizauskas is a freelance journalist. A story she wrote last year for the Reno News & Review has just been awarded the Nevada Press Association first place award for best business news story in the 2007-2008 year.

Growing out
Activists fight sprawl into areas remote from the Truckee Meadows

By Carol Cizauskas

Reno News and Review

Originally published 31 May 2007

A small but persistent group is leading the fight against proposed development of 5,700 acres west of Pyramid Lake. It would create up to 12,000 upscale homes in an area called Winnemucca Ranch, a process that would be eased by enactment of Assembly Bill 513.

A couple of hours before a May 25 Senate vote, about 20 members of Voters for Sensible Growth held signs and called their state representatives from cell phones in front of Reno City Hall. A.B. 513 passed the Senate 15-5 a few minutes later, but protestors say they’ll fight on as the bill makes its way back to the Assembly for approval of Senate amendments to the measure.

One of the leaders of the group is Erik Holland, who moved to Reno from Alaska seven years ago and last year ran unsuccessfully for Reno mayor, in part on this issue. The biggest reason the group opposes the Winnemucca Ranch development, he said, is because it’s leapfrog sprawl, instead of building close to the city.

[ More here... ]

Way to go, sis!

It was a dark and stormy night

Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped "Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J."

That, written by Garrison Spik, is this year's winning entry in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.

The contest, sponsored by the Department of English and Comparative Literature at San Jose State University in California, began in 1982. It

honors the memory (if not the reputation) of Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873). The goal of the contest is childishly simple: entrants are challenged to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels.

Although best known for "The Last Days of Pompeii" (1834), which has been made into a movie three times, originating the expression "the pen is mightier than the sword," and phrases like "the great unwashed" and "the almighty dollar," Bulwer-Lytton opened his novel Paul Clifford (1830) with the immortal words that the "Peanuts" beagle Snoopy plagiarized for years, "It was a dark and stormy night."

Appropriately enough, Mr. Spik (pronounced Speak) is the communications director for a Washington, D.C. firm.

Runner ups here.

Here's the original, inspirational, sentence of Lord Bulwer-Lytton:

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

Olympic Fright

lucky flowers on 8.8.08
Originally uploaded by cizauskas

I found the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics to be simultaneously tedious and discomfiting.

For me, just one drummer in a jazz quartet can transcend a moment more so than thousands of drummers with what appeared to be blood stains on their foreheads.

For me, the scene had ramifications of totalitarian might. Or as Tom Boswell of the Washington Post put it:

No democracy can or should invest the money and manpower that went into this city-wide fireworks-spewing deification of national pride, athletic aspiration and Communist Party self-congratulation.

Let the athletes compete -- except of course those refused visas by the Communist Chinese.

On this Chinese lucky day of 8/8/08, I submitted the above photo as part of the 24 Hours of Flickr – Flickr 888.

Have laptop? You're under suspicion!

Innocent until proven guilty has been one of the assumed rights of our Constitution, affirmed repeatedly by the Supreme Court, and popularly enshrined as a pillar of our national liberty.

Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop computer or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.

Also, officials may share copies of the laptop's contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"The policies . . . are truly alarming," said Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), who is probing the government's border search practices. He said he intends to introduce legislation soon that would require reasonable suspicion for border searches, as well as prohibit profiling on race, religion or national origin

This policy may seem merely an inconvenience but it brings a real danger to privacy, a real threat of identity theft, and a potential source of self-incrimination (inconveniently proscribed by the Fifth Amendment). It's a slippery slope we're on.

How to SAVE YOUR ENTIRE BLOG (blogger.com)

Not being very technically savvy, I was pleased to find this advice on how to archive all the posts of my blog. In one easy step.

I did so. My advice is for you to do so as well. Now!

From Dummies Guide to Google Blogger (beta):

Blog Backup has always been a bit of a problem for bloggers ever since the advent of the New Blogger. In Classic Blogger it was easy by using the Httrack utility from httrack.com.

In the new Blogger data was separated from template/layouts. XML was introduced. Hence one could backup blog by saving each post via browser or by using feeds. Now with Blogger introducing import-export facility backup has become easier..........

Here are the steps to backup your blog :

1. Login at Blogger in Draft: http://draft.blogger.com/home. Soon this feature will be out of draft (testing) phase and you will be able to login at Blogger.com to backup your blog.

2. Go to Settings---->Basic----->Blog Tools----->Click Export Blog link.

3. Click the Export Blog button.

4. In popup window click Save.

5. In explorer window you can rename the file and choose location where to save it on disk. It is saved as an XML file.

6. NOTE : You can use this file to restore the blog using the Import Blog feature. This feature to restore blogs was not available before.

Digital theft?

So let's get this straight.

You buy a song. But the retailer says it would be better for you that you don't actually own the song.

It would be so much better, the retailer tells you, that it should keep the song. It will allow you to play it anytime you wish (but not quite with any music-playing device you own).

But then ... the the retailer, who now has your money (and that of millions of others), says, "Oh, so sorry. You can't play that music anymore. But thank you for your money."

Welcome to the bizarro world of Digital Rights Management (DRM).

The newest catch-22 comes from Yahoo! which just this week announced that as of 1 October 2008 it will no longer support any purchases from its Yahoo! Music Unlimited Store (and in the process will redefine the meaning of "unlimited").

This model of unlimited rental has been showed to be a fraud, and in a manner, theft. The music business has been crying that it is we the consumers who are music thieves. What they do is not theft?

I don't steal music. I buy it, whether vinyl, CD, or download.

My most recent purchase --a download through eMusic, one of (now) many on-line music stores -- was a mid-90s recording from the Old 97's. It's wonderful alternative-country-rock, or whatever the category is that it falls into. But I dislike that damnable misuse of the " ' ". An apostrophe indicates possession or contraction, not the plural.

[UPDATE 2008.07.28]

Yahoo Music plans to issue refunds and is trying to go one step further. If a customer would prefer music over a refund, Yahoo is looking for a way to give the customer copies of the purchased songs in the DRM-free MP3 format, according to a Yahoo representative.

Yahoo Music is transferring customers of Yahoo Music Unlimited to RealNetworks' Rhapsody service. These are both subscription music services, so Yahoo users who choose to make the move are unaffected. But those who purchased songs would be out of luck after September 30.

Just the news please

On Thursday, when Senator Obama was in Berlin, Germany, MSNBC ran a news story with this sub-headline:

Obama addresses 200,000 in Berlin;
McCain eats at German restaurant.

No matter a person's political affiliation, that was not a "fair and balanced" juxtaposition.

McCain is currently running ads in which one hears crowds chanting "Obama, Obama" as the narrator asks who is responsible for rising gas prices. That's not exactly fair or balanced either.

But McCain's piece is indeed a political ad with that genre's attendant hyperbole.

MSNBC is a news organization.

Twitter's utility, part2

Twitter. Think of it as a mini-blog service of sorts, and a group messaging tool. Posts to it, called Tweets, are limited to 140 characters.

Rob Pegoraro, IT columnist/blogger at the Washington Post has written a column about his experience with Twitter. Other than disapproving of its too-often down-time, he generally liked his experience.

Twitter has become my public notebook, in which I jot down the one- or two-sentence comments, quotes and reports that aren't yet worthy of a blog post, but which I don't want to leave buried in my story-ideas file. (Some of my Twitter updates do turn into blog posts, some of which themselves eventually evolve into stories--which can in turn provide for follow-up tweets and blog posts. There's a bit of a circular food chain here.) In addition, Twitter helps me stay current on the thoughts of other tech-industry types--the reporters, analysts, consultants, publicists, developers and other people whose updates I follow or who post replies to my own tweets. And Twittering's forced brevity has pushed me to be more efficient in my prose everywhere else. I've settled on a rhythm of five or six posts on a workday, with none on nights, weekends and holidays

At a recent beer event, a beer store owner saw me posting a Tweet. "You're such a techie-geek," he said with a chuckle. I began to explain how I use Twitter for business purposes (selling beer).

Then I realized, "Well, yes. I suppose am." And I took another sip of my beer.

Nations label their domestic opponents as terrorists

[Bishop Eliezer] Pascua, general secretary of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, gave nine lectures on a tour from California to Nevada to Chicago [in early summer 2008]. He spoke not just to re-trace the details of several of what he counts as nearly 900 illegal executions since President Gloria Arroyo took office in 2001, but to prick American consciences.

“Continuing to support Bush’s ‘global war on terror,’ President Arroyo has ratcheted up her government’s pressure on the Philippine left, reviving memories of the Marcos dictatorship and its dirty war against the opposition,” wrote author Luis Francia in December. “Manila knows that as long as it supports the Bush Administration, thereby obtaining economic and military assistance from the United States, it can get away with murder—literally. … For Arroyo and [her political party], internationalizing long-running domestic insurgencies and recasting them as terrorist threats to an ill-defined world order has meant tapping into U.S. aid once again.” <...>

There have been repeated warnings that other nations label their domestic opponents as terrorists in order to internationalize internal disputes and gain support from the United States, much as governments used to paint their critics as communists to gain U.S. aid.

The remainder of the story:

Somber message in Sparks
The Philippines’ president called her opposition ‘terrorists,’ so the United States joined her war
by Carol Cizauskas
Reno News & Review
17 July 2008

The author is my sister.

tasteless at the New Yorker

Tom Toles, of the Washington Post, today published his political cartoon take on a recent New Yorker cover.

Satire is effective when it is slightly askew, when a certain lack of realism indicates that it is indeed satire. When the satire is represented in an overly arch and/or realistic manner, it disguises the intent of the satire, and instead becomes an inside, wink-wink, joke.

Jack Shafer of Slate.com disagrees with me.

Although every critic of the New Yorker understood the simple satire of the cover, the most fretful of them worried that the illustration would be misread by the ignorant masses who don't subscribe to the magazine.

Firefox 3.0 crashes

Aargh! Not now!

I'm planning for a trip, and the new Firefox 3.0 crashes on me. I don't have the time today (or the inclination) to follow all the heretofore unpublished tricks to forestall problems with a supposedly stable, wonderful, alternative to Internet Explorer.

In Firefox's defense, it is an open-source and non-profit browser project. And its previous iterations have been stable and so much more user-friendly than Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

From the the How To Geek:

Troubleshooting Problems with Firefox 3 Crashing or Hanging

With all the fanfare surrounding the release of Firefox 3 and the setting of a new world record for downloads, the fact that many people are having problems with Firefox instability seemed to get lost in the shuffle… so I decided to write up a list of troubleshooting methods that might help solve your problems.

There's a number of reasons for Firefox 3 crashing, which could include any of these, or be something else:

* Incompatible or Buggy Extensions
* Buggy Plugins
* Upgrading an Old 2.x Profile to 3.0 (using a fresh profile works best)
* Spyware/Viruses
* Compatibility Problems with XP
* Video Card Drivers (Make sure you are not using old drivers)
* Tablet PC Incompatibility
* Sneezing loudly

You'll have to read through the article and go through the steps that might apply to you… the last, and potentially best, option is to completely uninstall Firefox and remove all your profile folders, and then install it again, which we've covered below.

The rest of the article here.

Over Stimulus check

I received my $600 stimulus check today.

And it had the phrase "overstimulus" printed on it.


Wooh hoo! Now I can pay a portion of my gas credit card.

That's an OVER stimulus?

Don't think so. Unless I've been 'over-stimulizated'.

Real 'Slow' Networks: no DRM, finally

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Digital music seller Rhapsody is launching a $50 million marketing assault on Apple's iTunes, offering songs online and via partners including Yahoo Inc and Verizon Wireless, Rhapsody said on Monday.

The songs will be sold in MP3 format, which means users of the Rhapsody service will be able to play them on iPods.

Before now Rhapsody, jointly owned by Real Networks Inc and Viacom Inc's MTV Networks, had focused on a subscription service, allowing unlimited song streaming for $13 to $15 a month, rather than selling downloads.

I gave up on Real Networks over a year ago. The Digital Rights Management (DRM) restrictions and the oft repeating software glitches proved too much of a nuisance for what should have been an enjoyable experience. I want to listen to music, not struggle with it.

I dumped my stock as well.

Rhapsody is the latest player to challenge iTunes's 70 percent-plus market share of U.S. digital music sales.

Last month digital music service Napster Inc launched an MP3 store. Both Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Amazon.com Inc launched stores last year.

None of the new stores has made much of a dent on Apple's lead. Early this year iTunes became the biggest music retailer in the United States. It has sold more than 5 billion songs since it launched in 2003.

Its success has been due partly to a seamless interface between iTunes and the iPod and because it provides a good user experience [emphasis mine], said analyst David Card of Jupiter Research.<...>

Not to be sarcastic, but what would you expect?

"I think we'll see retailers begin to compete the way they usually compete with pricing, merchandising and promotions, rather than due to some arbitrary technology," Card said.

I don't have a degree in marketing. This simply sounds like common sense.


Rhapsody to challenge iTunes by embracing the iPod
By Yinka Adegoke
Mon Jun 30 2008
Reuters

You do NOT have the right to vote!

The 15th Amendment to the US Consitution states that "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." The 19th Amendment states that a person's sex may not be used to deny or abridge the right to vote.

But NOWHERE in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or any of the other Amendments, is the right to vote explicitly guaranteed as an actual right for any US citizen.

The Supreme Court in its recent decision of District of Columbia v. Heller gives the right of guns to DC residents (and, by extension, most US citizens). Please note, however, that DC residents do NOT have the right to vote for Congressional representation. Their right to vote for President was only granted in the 1960s granted by the 23rd Amendment.

Notions Capitol, from whom I borrowed the above graphic, has some interesting comments on the matter.

a morality lesson

Peggy Noonan, in the Wall Street Journal on Friday 20 June, offers a 'moral' analysis on the meaning of Tim Russert's life.

After Tim's death, the entire television media for four days told you the keys to a life well lived, the things you actually need to live life well, and without which it won't be good. Among them: taking care of those you love and letting them know they're loved, which involves self-sacrifice; holding firm to God, to your religious faith, no matter how high you rise or low you fall. This involves guts, and self-discipline, and active attention to developing and refining a conscience to whose promptings you can respond. Honoring your calling or profession by trying to do within it honorable work, which takes hard effort, and a willingness to master the ethics of your field. And enjoying life. This can be hard in America, where sometimes people are rather grim in their determination to get and to have. "Enjoy life, it's ungrateful not to," said Ronald Reagan.

They paved the river and put in a parking lot?

I'm no meteorologist, but ...

5 observations from the Great Midwest Flood of '08:

• "With that volume of rain, you're going to have flooding, said Donna Dubberke, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. "This is not just because someone put in a parking lot."
  
• Elwynn Taylor, a meteorologist at Iowa State University attributes the flooding in recent years to cyclical climate change.
  
• "We've lost 90 percent of our wetlands," said Mary Skopec, who monitors water quality for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
  
• Crop rotation may also play a subtle role in the flooding. Farmers who may have once grown a number of crops are now likely to stick to just corn and soybeans -- annual plants that don't put down deep roots.
• "Cities routinely build in the flood plain," said Kamyar Enshayan, director of an environmental center at the University of Northern Iowa. "That's not an act of God; that's an act of City Council."

Iowa Flooding Could Be An Act of Man, Experts Say
By Joel Achenbach
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 19, 2008; Page A01

Help at Network for Good.

Tim Russert

Tim Russert, NBC Washington, DC bureau chief, and long-time moderator of Meet The Press, has died.

Tim Russert always seemed to me the amazing combination of tough questioner --inside man of the press-- and common man, with whom you would want to have a beer.

But Mr. Russert was obviously not a common man, considering his skills, the accolades being given him, and the prominence to which he rose.

Sunday mornings at 10:30 when Meet the Press aired here in DC, my 82 year-young mother would brook no interruption while 'her Tim' was analyzing the news, and especially politics, for her.

It's too young a death that has been unfair to Tim Russert, and his family ... and to us.

Big Tim, this beer's for you.

[Read this appreciation from Peggy Noonan, who was Ronald Reagan's speechwriter.]

Hang On Little Tomato

Grow your own tomatoes ... and when you don't, buy from local farmers!

Kim O'Donnell
Washington Post
A Mighty Appetite

Are tomatoes from local growers (farmer's markets etc.) safe provided they are washed thoroughly?

The FDA has issued a very long dizzying list of domestic and international tomato spots NOT affected by the outbreak, and if you can come up with a way to make sense of it, give me a call.

Here's my personal, unscientific rule of thumb: Buy local tomatoes. Like we learned from the horrible spinach scare in 2006, the source of contamination came from industrial-scale farms (via bagged supermarket spinach), not from your local farmer's market. Here in Washington, vine tomatoes are still at least a month away, and if you do see them on display at your local market, it means they're probably from a greenhouse. But that's the beauty of going to the farmer's market -- there's a real person behind the stand available for consultation and guidance, someone who can tell you how the tomato was grown and handled.

So, to minimize your chances of eating contaminated food: Buy local and seasonal. Thoroughly wash all raw produce. And wash your hands!

Sorting Through the Tomato Pulp

----------------
Now playing: Pink Martini - Hang On Little Tomato
via FoxyTunes

The sun has left and forgotten me
It`s dark, I cannot see
Why does this rain pour down
I`m gonna drown
In a sea
Of deep confusion

Somebody told me, I don`t know who
Whenever you are sad and blue
And you`re feelin` all alone and left behind
Just take a look inside and you will find

You gotta hold on, hold on through the night
Hang on, things will be all right
Even when it`s dark
And not a bit of sparkling
Sing-song sunshine from above
Spreading rays of sunny love

Just hang on, hang on to the vine
Stay on, soon you`ll be divine
If you start to cry, look up to the sky
Something`s coming up ahead
To turn your tears to dew instead

And so I hold on to his advice
When change is hard and not so nice
If you listen to your heart the whole night through
Your sunny someday will come one day soon to you.

The rich are cooler than you or me

Fox network bloviator Bill O'Reilly announced today that we Americans should save energy by raising our summer thermostats to 71 °F.

I certainly can't afford that setting. Mine's hurting the wallet as it is set at 80°F.

The rich indeed are different than you or me. They're more comfortable this summer.

Much green needed to go green

By 2050, the world population will top nine billion. Where's the food, water, and energy going to come from?

Samuel Bodman [U.S. energy secretary] attending two days of meetings in northern Japan among energy chiefs from Group of Eight industrialized countries and other top economies, said the surge in world oil prices was largely a simple problem of supply and demand.

Production has stalled since 2005 at 85 million barrels a day, while economic growth — particularly in China and India — has pushed demand ever higher, Bodman said before a meeting of ministers from the U.S., Japan, South Korea, India and China.

"We're in a difficult position where we have a lid on production and we have increasing demand in the world," he told a small group of reporters, dismissing the effects of speculation and unclear inventory levels and other factors on oil prices.

By JOSEPH COLEMAN, Associated Press Writer Sat Jun 7

In other words, oil, as energy, is only getting to become scarcer and/or more expensive. and that's the oil-friendly Bush administration saying this.

Also this week, the International Energy Agency

put a figure on the amount it will cost to go green, and it’s a lot: $45 trillion. Even when you spread that amount over the next 42 years, it’s still more than $1 trillion annually, or more than the GDP of many industrialized nations.

Nobuo Tanaka, the agency’s executive director, gave the figure as part of a report calling for “a global energy revolution.” He called for “immediate policy action and technological transition on an unprecedented scale.” The world needed to “completely transform the way we produce and use energy.”

Some reasons why I supported Hillary Clinton

... and why I now support Senator Barack Obama for President of the United States of America

Senator Hillary Clinton's Concession Speech
7 June 2008

I ran as a daughter who benefited from opportunities my mother never dreamed of. I ran as a mother who worries about my daughter's future and a mother who wants to lead all children to brighter tomorrows. To build that future I see, we must make sure that women and men alike understand the struggles of their grandmothers and mothers, and that women enjoy equal opportunities, equal pay, and equal respect. Let us resolve and work toward achieving some very simple propositions: There are no acceptable limits and there are no acceptable prejudices in the twenty-first century.

You can be so proud that, from now on, it will be unremarkable for a woman to win primary state victories, unremarkable to have a woman in a close race to be our nominee, unremarkable to think that a woman can be the President of the United States. And that is truly remarkable. <...>

Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it's got about 18 million cracks in it. And the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time. That has always been the history of progress in America.

Think of the suffragists who gathered at Seneca Falls in 1848 and those who kept fighting until women could cast their votes. Think of the abolitionists who struggled and died to see the end of slavery. Think of the civil rights heroes and foot-soldiers who marched, protested and risked their lives to bring about the end to segregation and Jim Crow.

Because of them, I grew up taking for granted that women could vote. Because of them, my daughter grew up taking for granted that children of all colors could go to school together. Because of them, Barack Obama and I could wage a hard fought campaign for the Democratic nomination. Because of them, and because of you, children today will grow up taking for granted that an African American or a woman can yes, become President of the United States.

When that day arrives and a woman takes the oath of office as our President, we will all stand taller, proud of the values of our nation, proud that every little girl can dream and that her dreams can come true in America. And all of you will know that because of your passion and hard work you helped pave the way for that day.

So I want to say to my supporters, when you hear people saying - or think to yourself - "if only" or "what if," I say, "please don't go there." Every moment wasted looking back keeps us from moving forward.

Life is too short, time is too precious, and the stakes are too high to dwell on what might have been. We have to work together for what still can be. And that is why I will work my heart out to make sure that Senator Obama is our next President and I hope and pray that all of you will join me in that effort. <...>

our lives, our freedom, our happiness, are best enjoyed, best protected, and best advanced when we do work together.

That is what we will do now as we join forces with Senator Obama and his campaign. We will make history together as we write the next chapter in America's story. We will stand united for the values we hold dear, for the vision of progress we share, and for the country we love. There is nothing more American than that. <...>

I will do it with a heart filled with gratitude, with a deep and abiding love for our country- and with nothing but optimism and confidence for the days ahead. This is now our time to do all that we can to make sure that in this election we add another Democratic president to that very small list of the last 40 years and that we take back our country and once again move with progress and commitment to the future.

Thank you all and God bless you and God bless America.

Proud to be an American

This morning, I'm proud and thrilled to be American.

A divided party? Ha!

A long powerful debate strengthens democracy.

Hillary? Despite some gaffes, and her husband's diminution of his legacy, she proved herself to be one tough broad. And someone whose best days - and best days for America - are still in front of her. I have more admiration for her now than when she announced her candidacy.

But so, with 2,156 delegates to Hillary Clinton's 1,933, it is Barack Obama who will be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.

I am abashed today that it has been taken more than 200 years for a presidential candidate to not be judged by the color of his skin but by the content of his character. So I look forward to the possibility that on 20 January 2009, Barack Obama, an African-American, will be sworn in as President of the United States.

What do I think is at stake?

• the threat of religious extremism to our national security
• the threat to our lives, economy, and planet from global warming
• our increasingly dangerous dependence on foreign energy sources
  
• the threat to the viability of the middle class in the United States, due in part to the transfer of wealth to the top tier
• the decreasing economic vitality of the United States internationally
• the civil war in Iraq that we hastened- if not caused - and the concomitant enervation of our military
  
• the threats against our basic freedoms from international business and our own government
  
• good health care, not only for the wealthy.
• good education, not only for the wealthy.
  

"There is not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America."

HRC to suspend campaign Tuesday evening, 3 June

AP: Clinton to concede tonight

BY BETH FOUHY | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON – Hillary Rodham Clinton will concede Tuesday night that Barack Obama has the delegates to secure the Democratic nomination, campaign officials said, effectively ending her bid to be the nation’s first female president.

The former first lady will stop short of formally suspending or ending her race in her speech in New York City. She will pledge to continue to speak out on issues like health care. But for all intents and purposes, the two senior officials said, the campaign is over.

Most campaign staff will be let go and will be paid through June 15, said the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to divulge her plans.

However ...

Clinton campaign says she's not conceding

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is "absolutely not" planning to concede the campaign to Barack Obama on Tuesday night, Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe told CNN on Tuesday.

"No one has the number to be the nominee of the Democratic party right now," he said.

McAuliffe, asked about an AP report that Clinton will acknowledge Tuesday night after the South Dakota and Montana primaries that Obama has the delegates to clinch the nomination for the November presidential election, replied: "They are 100 percent incorrect."

I think that this may be a question of what "is" is. Suspending a campaign is a different thing than conceding a loss. I believe that Clinton will suspend active campaigning, but keep her slate of delegates intact through the convention.

Hors de combat ... Or not!

Betrayal of trust

Like rats scurrying from a sinking (sunken?) ship, President Bush's erstwhile comrades desert him. I'm no fan of the President and the havoc he's brought upon this nation (and the world). But the betrayal of Bush by his past Press Secretary Scott McClellan (and others before him) almost makes me feel sorry for Bush ... almost.

McClennan has written a book in which he tells of the dissembling, ineptitude, and political crassness of the White House before and during the Iraq civil war (and dealing with Hurricane Katrina).

If McClellan had had such strong concerns while at the White House, he should have done his patriotic duty at that time and resigned. "It's time to spend more time with my family", etc., etc.

I experience no schadenfreude, merely pity.

Politico.com: McClellan whacks Bush, White House

Phoenix rises

Another reason to celebrate on this Memorial Day:

This image shows a polygonal pattern in the ground near NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, similar in appearance to icy ground in the arctic regions of Earth.

Phoenix touched down on the Red Planet at 4:53 p.m. Pacific Time (7:53 p.m. Eastern Time), May 25, 2008, in an arctic region called Vastitas Borealis, at 68 degrees north latitude, 234 degrees east longitude.

This is an approximate-color image taken shortly after landing by the spacecraft's Surface Stereo Imager, inferred from two color filters, a violet, 450-nanometer filter and an infrared, 750-nanometer filter.

The Phoenix Mission is led by the University of Arizona, Tucson, on behalf of NASA. Project management of the mission is by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Spacecraft development is by Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

That's a picture on the surface of Mars and transmitted 147 million miles back to Earth. The Phoenix craft slowed in 7 minutes from 12,500+ miles per hour to 5 mph, its heat shield heated in excess of 2500 °F, plopped a parachute, fired small retro rockets, and landed with a mere bump.

It's enough to give one širpuliai (say it, Anglicized: shirples), Lithuanian for goosebumps. Proud to be an American, proud to be a citizen of planet Earth!

Commemorate Memorial Day.