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Please Sir Can I Have Some More?
2008-01-17 07:50:00
Imagine the President of the United States of America, with hat in hand, begging the leader of a third world country for anything. Today George HW Bush did just that.From ABC News:Bush Asks Saudi King to Open Oil SpigotsMakes Personal Appeal After Public Rejection One hour after his plea for more Saudi oil was publicly rejected by the kingdom's oil minister, President Bush made a private visit to Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah to again ask him to open the spigots. The White House revealed Bush's private meeting with the Saudi monarch to reporters aboard Air Force One as the president flew to Egypt on the next leg of his Mideast trip....Earlier Tuesday, Bush made his case for having OPEC, and particularly American ally Saudi Arabia, increase oil production as the price of gas hovers around $3 a gallon.The Saudi oil minister, however, waited only a short time before announcing that oil prices would remain tied to market forces ? a direct slap at Bush.The president went over the head...

Huckabee Shows His True Colors
2008-01-16 08:13:00
Looks like he's shed his populist image for a more comfortable Christianist one.From Raw Story:The United States Constitution never uses the word "God" or makes mention of any religion, drawing its sole authority from "We the People." However, Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee thinks it's time to put an end to that. "I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution," Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. "But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view."Of course the odds of him being elected POTUS and then getting such an agenda past a Democrat controlled House and Senate are infinitesimal.Meanwhile over at Donklephant Justin Gardner declares Huckabee done for. I beg to differ. Given the possibili...
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Mitt Mauls McCain in Michigan
2008-01-16 07:38:00
Romney pulls in 39% of the vote compared to McCain's 30%From the NY Times:ANN ARBOR, Mich. ? Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who ran as a son of Michigan though he left the state nearly 40 years ago, won a commanding victory Tuesday in the Republican primary here with a message aimed at voters deeply anxious about the state?s ailing economy. Mr. Romney defeated his principal rival, Senator John McCain of Arizona, by winning a clear plurality of Republicans and conservatives, who turned out in greater numbers than they had in the 2000 primary, which Mr. McCain won....With 97 percent of the electoral precincts reporting, Mr. Romney had 39 percent of the vote, compared with 30 percent for Mr. McCain and 16 percent for Mr. Huckabee. Ron Paul, the antiwar congressman from Texas, came in fourth with 6 percent of the vote. Mr. Romney?s victory here means three different Republican candidates have won each of the first three major contests. The race moves to South Carolina a...

US Government to Monitor All of Cyberspace?
2008-01-15 07:56:00
For our security of course.From the Wall Street JournalSpychief Mike McConnell is drafting a plan to protect America?s cyberspace that will raise privacy issues and make the current debate over surveillance law look like ?a walk in the park,? McConnell tells The New Yorker in the issue set to hit newsstands Monday. ?This is going to be a goat rope on the Hill. My prediction is that we?re going to screw around with this until something horrendous happens.? At issue, McConnell acknowledges, is that in order to accomplish his plan, the government must have the ability to read all the information crossing the Internet in the United States in order to protect it from abuse. Congressional aides tell The Journal that they, too, are also anticipating a fight over civil liberties that will rival the battles over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.Ok, blatantly obvious privacy concerns aside I see this creating a slippery slope. By that I mean how long until this technology goes from ...
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Things I Have Learned
2008-01-12 18:28:00
Never allow a pregnant and nesting women into a facility that adopts out animals.
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What's Bloomberg Waiting For?
2008-01-12 07:49:00
I think I've figured it out. Simply put he's waiting to see who the nominees are. By that I mean that his candidacy wouldn't have the same traction in an Obama vs McCain race as it would in a Clinton vs Romney or Giuliani race.
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The Case Against Ethanol
2008-01-12 06:17:00
I've long been an opponent of ethanol as a viable source of alternative energy for America. At best it's a short sighted and inefficient attempt at energy independence at worst its just another way to subsidize corn. Over at Scientific American the recently published an article showing the results of a five year study on switchgrass and found that acre per acre it produces over twenty one times more energy than ethanol.But yields from a grass that only needs to be planted once would deliver an average of 13.1 megajoules of energy as ethanol for every megajoule of petroleum consumed?in the form of nitrogen fertilizers or diesel for tractors?growing them. "It's a prediction because right now there are no biorefineries built that handle cellulosic material" like that which switchgrass provides, Vogel notes. "We're pretty confident the ethanol yield is pretty close." This means that switchgrass ethanol delivers 540 percent of the energy used to produce it, compared with just roughly...
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Word of the Day
2008-01-12 05:21:00
HubrisOverbearing pride or presumption.For example:"If you have a social need, you're with Hillary. If you want Obama to be your imaginary hip black friend and you're young and you have no social needs, then he's cool," - a "Clinton adviser" to Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland.
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Also Appearing at
2008-01-11 07:55:00
The inestimable MVDG has asked me to contribute at The PoliGazette. Since I am always looking for new people to annoy I of course accepted. So please drop by and see whats going on there. Its a good blog despite the fact that MVDG allows me to post there.

Unity 08 Closes Shop
2008-01-11 07:27:00
Unity08 announced today that its closing the doors on its current incarnation due to a shortage of both members and money.From Unity08.com The past year has taught us that it's tough to rally millions to a process as opposed to a candidate or an issue. In the past, third party movements that have broken through the monopoly of the established parties have always been based on a person (Teddy Roosevelt in 1912 or Ross Perot in the last decade) or a burning issue (slavery in the case of the insurgent Republican party in 1860). Stirring people and moving them to action about a process change - replacing the quirky primary system that tends to drive candidates to the extremes with something more inclusive and sensible - has proven to be a lot harder than we expected. And the Federal Election Commission hasn't helped. The Commission has taken the position that we are subject to their jurisdiction (even though two United States Supreme Court decisions hold exactly opposite) and, therefo...
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Bill Richardson Bows Out
2008-01-10 04:40:00
Looks like he knows when the getting is good...From MSNBC:MERRIMACK, N.H. - New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson will announce Thursday that he is ending his campaign for the presidency, sources inside the Richardson campaign confirmed to NBC News on Wednesday.Sources told The Associated Press and NBC News about the withdrawal plan on condition of anonymity in advance of the governor's announcement.The Richardson campaign would not comment on the governor's decision, reached after a meeting with his top advisers Wednesday in New Mexico.I think had Obama not entered the race his bid for the nomination might have had more traction. However with his resume I'm sure he'll land on his feet. Maybe even as somebody's running mate.
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Clinton Clinches New Hampshire
2008-01-09 07:42:00
It was an exceedingly close victory though Clinton 's 39% to Obama's 37%From ABC News: Sen. Hillary Clinton has narrowly won the New Hampshire primary, becoming the first woman -- and the first-ever former first lady -- to win the first-in-the-nation contest. Clinton beat out Sen. Barack Obama, who, riding a wave of momentum from his Iowa caucus victory, battled for a close second place in the Granite State. Never thought to be a major factor in New Hampshire, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards came in a distant third in the state and will now focus his limited resources on South Carolina, where he won in 2004....The tight race has also secured Obama as a formidable opponent for Clinton, setting up what may become a bloody political battle between the two Democratic rivals going into the big-state primaries Feb. 5.Man if this had been a football game Clinton won it by a field goal. Despite the loss Obama has shown that he is capable of effectively competing with Clinton. That...
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Racist Rants Return to Plague Ron Paul
2008-01-09 05:52:00
Over at TNR James Kirchick tracked down some of Ron Paul 's old newsletters and discovered that the allegations of their racist content were in fact true.From TNR:Finding the pre-1999 newsletters was no easy task, but I was able to track many of them down at the libraries of the University of Kansas and the Wisconsin Historical Society. Of course, with few bylines, it is difficult to know whether any particular article was written by Paul himself. Some of the earlier newsletters are signed by him, though the vast majority of the editions I saw contain no bylines at all. Complicating matters, many of the unbylined newsletters were written in the first person, implying that Paul was the author.But, whoever actually wrote them, the newsletters I saw all had one thing in common: They were published under a banner containing Paul's name, and the articles (except for one special edition of a newsletter that contained the byline of another writer) seem designed to create the impression th...
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The Song Remains the Same
2008-01-09 05:28:00
But this time its a Dem accused of taking bribes in return for earmarks. Is this just the tip of the iceberg?From Citizensforethics.comCitizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) today sent a complaint to the Department of Justice, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District for Louisiana and the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, asking for an investigation into whether Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) violated federal bribery law by including a $2 million earmark for Voyager Expanded Learning in a bill a mere four days after receiving $30,000 in campaign contributions from company executives and their relatives. CREW also asked the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate the matter.Call me cynical but part of me is just waiting for the Dem's to start showing the same degree of corruption we saw when the government was under GOP control. We need meaningful election/ campaign finance reform. However until that happens I'm going to continue backing publicly fi...
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Obamania Hits South Carolina
2008-01-08 06:20:00
Ok, I may have been wrong about Obama needing NH to guarantee a win in SC.from Rasmussen:The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in South Carolina shows that Barack Obama has opened a double digit-lead over Hillary Clinton in the January 26th Primary Election. It?s Obama 42% Clinton 30%. John Edwards attracts 14% of the vote and nobody else tops 3%....In South Carolina , Obama now attracts 58% of the African-American vote, up from 50% in December. Earlier in the year, Obama and Clinton split this important constituency fairly evenly. Now while Obama enjoys a 2-to-1 advantage over Clinton among African-American voters, white voters are split fairly evenly between three candidates--it?s Clinton 32%, Edwards 29%, and Obama 27%. For Obama, that reflects a 13-point improvement from the previous survey. I do think a Clinton win in NH could make SC a tight race between the two. However what's it say about Edwards that he polls better in Iowa and New Hampshire than he does in his home...
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Obama Now Ahead in NH Polls
2008-01-07 06:42:00
Looks like his win in Iowa answered that electability question.From CNN:MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (CNN) ? MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (CNN) ? Two days before New Hampshire's Democratic primary, Sen. Barack Obama has opened a double-digit lead over Sen. Hillary Clinton in that state, a new CNN-WMUR poll found Sunday. Obama, the first-term senator from Illinois who won last week's Iowa caucuses, led the New York senator and former first lady 39 percent to 29 percent in a poll conducted Saturday and Sunday ? a sharp change from a poll out Saturday that showed the Democratic front-runners tied at 33 percent. Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina is at 16 percent in the new survey, down four points from Saturday. Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico is in fourth place, with the support of 7 percent of likely New Hampshire Democratic primary voters, with Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio at 2 percent.A USA Today poll confirms this but also shows that Huckabee isn't receiving a similar boos...
More About: Polls , Ahead

I'm Getting Hitched
2008-01-05 06:16:00
As of 10:30am tomorrow I will officially be off the market. Ladies, please try to keep the wailing and gnashing of teeth to a minimum. Thanks.

Obama and Huckabee Win in Iowa
2008-01-04 06:41:00
Definitely an upset for the predicted winners Clinton and Romney.From Reuters:Obama and Huckabee win first 2008 voteDES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - Barack Obama took a big step on Thursday toward becoming the first black U.S. president when his campaign for change caught fire in Iowa and swept him past Hillary Clinton in the opening Democratic nominating contest. Republican underdog Mike Huckabee capped a stunning political rise to beat rival Mitt Romney in Iowa, despite being dramatically outspent by the wealthy former Massachusetts governor and venture capitalist. Obama, an Illinois senator, captured the first Democratic prize on the road to the White House with a comeback triumph over New York Sen. Clinton and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, who were in a tight battle for second....Turnout among Democrats topped 220,000, smashing the previous record of 124,000 in 2004 -- testament to the high enthusiasm among Democrats heading into November's election.Conversely only 90,...

Holiday Hiatus/Linkfest
2007-12-27 07:38:00
I have my son for winter break so I'll be on hiatus till the Iowa primaries. Until then as my belated Christmas present to you I present the holiday linkfest. Just leave your blogs title and adress in the comments of this post and I'll put a link here (as long as it doesn't promote anything illegal, immoral, or light beer). If you'd link back I'd appreciate it.
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A Gentle Reminder
2007-12-27 07:38:00
If you itemized your deductions last year and owed the IRS money and plan on owing next year this week would be a good time to donate to your favorite charity. After all NGOs are normally much more efficient than the federal government.
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One of These Things is Not Like the Others
2007-12-24 07:32:00
Nativity set plus a four year old equals:(Click picture to enlarge)Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king behold there came three wise men, a golem called Optimus Prime, and a pirate captain named Jack....The Gospel According to Mattel 2:1
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Torture and the '08 Elections
2007-12-20 08:17:00
I've talked a fair bit about torture here and it's greatly influenced my decision making as to who I'm going to vote for. Over at TMV David Schraub concludes that the entire election is about torture. And he's right in that we do need to have a national debate about torture in order to decide what America is. However I think that the point his title makes needs to be explored in a different manner. To me the questions about torture are an excellent barometer of any candidate's morales. Here's the way I see it. If you ask the question WWJD in regards to torture the answer is readily apparent. However many candidates seem to be at odds with the beliefs they claim they have and their position on torture. If they can't follow the dictates of their own faith how can we expect them to follow "lesser dictates" like international law or the Constitution (or even tell the truth consistently for that matter)? There has to be some minimum bar for morality in a president and sadly enough...
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Glow Softly and Carry a Big Stick
2007-12-20 06:27:00
Tired of paying high electric bills but don't want your Redstate reading friends making fun of your solar panels? Thanks to the new Home Nuclear Reactor from Toshiba your fiscal conservatism can now be nuclear powered!From Wired:If we lived in a world where everyone was (a) smart and (b) trustworthy, Toshiba's micro-sized nuclear reactor, small enough to fit in the basement or a large shed, would be a slam-dunk solution to the energy/climate crisis. Twenty foot long by six foot wide, the reactors produce 200kW of energy and run themselves: the entire thing is manufactured with the fuel within, and when it runs out, they can just send a truck to pick it up."Unlike traditional nuclear reactors the new micro reactor uses no control rods to initiate the reaction. The new revolutionary technology uses reservoirs of liquid lithium-6, an isotope that is effective at absorbing neutrons. The Lithium-6 reservoirs are connected to a vertical tube that fits into the reactor core. The whole ...
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OMG They Killed Kenny!
2007-12-19 07:58:00
or Hentish as the case may be.Looks like Blackwater is back in the news yet again first it was the murder of Iraqi citizens, then it was for its employees allegedly gang raping a coworker and now they've shot the NY Times dog.From Reuters:BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. embassy in Iraq is investigating another deadly shooting incident involving its Blackwater bodyguards -- this time of the New York Times's dog. Staff at the newspaper's Baghdad bureau said Blackwater bodyguards shot Hentish dead last week before a visit by a U.S. diplomat to the Times compound. Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said the dog had attacked one of Blackwater's bomb-sniffer dogs while a security team was sweeping the compound for explosives.At this rate the next salvo of negative press launched against Blackwater will involve children. I'm betting that it will eventually be alleged that Blackwater employees were either found running a sweatshop using forced child labor or that they were caught sel...
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Court Strikes a Blow Against Excessive Secrecy
2007-12-18 07:39:00
And it'll be hard for the right wing noise machine to claim the presiding judge is judicial activist this time. Why? Because in order to do that they'd first have to admit that Reagan was wrong.From the AP:WASHINGTON (AP) ? White House visitor logs are public documents, a federal judge ruled Monday, rejecting a legal strategy that the Bush administration had hoped would get around public records laws and let them keep their guests a secret.The ruling is a blow to the Bush administration, which has fought the release of records showing visits by prominent religious conservatives.Visitor records are created by the Secret Service, which is subject to the Freedom of Information Act. But the Bush administration has ordered the data turned over to the White House, where they are treated as presidential records outside the scope of the public records law.But U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth ruled logs from the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's residence remain Secret Ser...
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Ron Paul Beats Own Fundraising Record
2007-12-17 07:10:00
If the momentum keeps going at the current rate he'll crack eighteen million for the quarter by midnight pacific standard time.From the Boston Globe:On Nov. 5, supporters of Ron Paul raked in more than $4.2 million in donations in 24 hours, mostly of them collected over the Internet.Today, they're at it again. Hoping to detonate what they call a "money bomb," the supporters started fundraising at midnight Saturday and have already raised $2 million as of about 10:30 a.m. today, more than at this point on Nov. 5, according to figures they posted online. They hope to collect a total of $10 million by midnight Sunday.Last time, they tied their fundraising to Guy Fawkes Day, which commemorates a British mercenary who tried unsuccesfully to kill King James I on Nov. 5, 1605. This time, they're seizing on the 234th aniversary of the Boston Tea Party and converging on this snowy city to rally.The WaPo confirms that this money bomb has met its goal and adds that he is the only candidate ...
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New Jersey Abolishes Death Penalty
2007-12-14 07:29:00
Looks like NJ Dems were able to push it through using a fiscal responsibility argument.From the WaPo:NEW YORK, Dec. 13 -- New Jersey lawmakers on Thursday became the first in the nation to abolish the death penalty since the Supreme Court restored it in 1976. Opponents of capital punishment hope the state's action may prompt a rethinking of the moral and practical implications of the practice in other states.New Jersey's Democratic-controlled General Assembly voted 44 to 36 on Thursday to repeal the death penalty and replace it with life in prison without parole. The action followed a similar vote by the state Senate on Monday. Gov. Jon S. Corzine, a Democrat and a death penalty opponent, has said he will sign the legislation....The U.S. Supreme Court has effectively declared a moratorium on executions since it decided to take up in this term the question of whether lethal injection constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. In recent decisions, the high court has narrowed the use ...
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Interview With Ron Paul at RCP
2007-12-13 07:42:00
Over at RCP John Stossel has posted his most recent interview which is of Ron Paul . Here are a few highlights:What should government do? Ron Paul: Protect our freedoms. Have a strong national defense. Look at and take care of our borders. Have a sound currency. That was the responsibility of the federal government, not to run our lives and run everything in the economy and extend the interstate-commerce clause and the general-welfare clause to do anything they want to do. So defense, the military, police forces enforce contracts, and that's about it? That's it. We would have a court system to enforce contracts, and when people do harm to others, when they take property or injure property, or pollute a neighbor's air, I think there's a role for government to protect our environment through private-property rights. So keep us safe, enforce contracts, run the courts, pollution rules and otherwise butt out? Leave us alone? Basically that, which would mean if I'm elect...
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Donklephant Donation Drive
2007-12-13 06:30:00
Over at Donklephant Justin Gardner has started his first ever donation drive. The purpose? As Justin put it:A significant redesign that will look better, have more community features and enable us to offer you more content from sources like news feeds, video feeds and more.Change our hosting plan so the site is more secure and loads faster.Hire an admin to keep tabs on the site so we experience virtually no downtime.Expand the site to include subdomains about technology, business, entertainment and more. This way you can get more of the news that?s important to you all in one place.So please drop by and join me in hitting Justin's tip jar. Thanks.
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Clinton's Plan B
2007-12-12 07:45:00
Looks like Clinton is taking Obama seriously enough to have a back up plan after Iowa.From the WaPo:MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Hillary Rodham Clinton's backup plan if she falters in Iowa can be summed up in two words: New Hampshire.Clinton's Democratic team is preparing television ads here criticizing Barack Obama's health care plan and working to build what campaigns call a firewall. If the Obama presidential campaign ignites in Iowa, she wants to be ready to cool him off in a state where her organization is strong and her support has proven durable.This past weekend, the Clinton campaign already had volunteers going door-to-door with fliers criticizing Obama on health care. Possible TV ads to run against him also have been previewed in the state.Advisers to the New York senator acknowledge there's been uneasiness as Obama has risen in national and several early state polls, including Iowa and New Hampshire. But they insist their master blueprint emphasizing Clinton's experience, tou...
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