Maybe Pres. Bush's attempts to weaken standards for arsenic and mercury might have something to do with that perception?

Posted at May 8, 2008 4:05 PM in response to A Question for the Community: To Hack or Not To Hack?

It is a special privilege to marry someone you love? Or do you have a magical belief that a happy homosexual marriage somehow can destroy a happy heterosexual one?

Is it a special privilege to recognize that a certain SAT score gained by the graduate of a slum score often indicates more ability and diligene than the same score earned by a prep school graduate assisted by tutoring?

Mostly, conservatives seem to believe that anything that ameliorates a past wrong is a special privilege.

Posted at May 8, 2008 4:03 PM in response to A Question for the Community: To Hack or Not To Hack?

Anglachel's Journal and David Seaton are good correctives to this site.

Posted at May 8, 2008 3:55 PM in response to A Question for the Community: To Hack or Not To Hack?

What rule?

Also, perhaps Obama could make up his mind -- he is not obliged to follow the principles of small d democracy with regard to the wishes of the Michigan voters because it is not in the rules but the superdelegates are obliged to follow the wishes of the majority of the primary voters (unless you live in district which voted for Clinton in which case you are still entitled to vote for Obama) despite that fact that nothing in the rules requires this and the historical fact that the superdelegates were installed in the first place to override the primary outcome if it would result in a candidate who would be unelectable in the fall.

Posted at May 8, 2008 11:49 AM in response to Michigan Dems Suggest Compromise Delegate Plan

If there is going to be enough carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to raise the temperature to levels that render the Earth unihabitable it hardly matters whether the source is natural or manmade: the only relevant question is whether it is possible to reduce the carbon dioxide to levels where the plante is not in peril.

The first step is to reduce the lavish use of energy by the United States.

Obama has no core prinicples and says whatever he thinks will get him elected.

Posted at May 8, 2008 11:41 AM in response to Gas Tax Holiday? Clean Coal? Who's pandering to whom?

In Michigan citizens returning to society from prison are entitled to vote but the systems destroys their ID -- driver's licenses etc upon entrance to the prison system. So the Michigan Prison Re-entry program has had to devote hours of time to try and help individuals re-establish their identities. The Sec. of State has refused to recognize the prison picture ID as government issued ID so substantial time and resources have been devoted to tracking down birth certificates from Hawaii or substitutes in situations where the county court house records are otherwise not availble.

The burden is much greater than a simple poll tax.

Posted at May 3, 2008 1:29 PM in response to Supreme Court tilts election, big time

Rev. Wright's comments were very carefully worded for a certain amount of deniability: I wouldn't put it passed our government to promulgate AIDS based on what we saw from Tuskegee. But Rev. Wright's comments promulgated a disabling level of paranoia and fed hatred nonetheless. Obama has made no reproach to Rev. Wright that Obama is willing to discuss -- Rev. Wright intimates that Obama is distancing himself from Wright's positions for political reasons. What ever Rev. Wright's faults dishonesty does not seem to be one of them. Obama appears to have specifically told the Reverend that Obama would might have to distance himself from the Reverend because 'you know that you get rough sometimes in sermons.' Under these circumstances -- the only revealed reproach being for style not substance -- shouldn't the Reverend believe that Obama agrees with him?

Obama made no known reproach to the Reverend and is now paying the price.

It is indeed interesting to see how quickly Obama has become incensed when it is own stature versus America's stature which is at issue.

The other way that Obama could have handled this rather than saying my spiritual guide for twenty years is my crazy uncle in the attic would be to acknowledge that while Reverend Wright has gone over the top there is a grain of truth in some of his criticisms and here it is. But Obama plays his Rorschach defense instead -- I don't agree with his inflamatory statements some ones of which
I was not in the pews for. So if you like some of the Reverend's statements you can imagine Obama agrees, and if not, well, Obama doesn't agree does he?

Posted at May 1, 2008 8:50 AM in response to Obama only gets mad if you call him a pol

Pollster.com is a good anti-dote for those of you with an aversion to reality.

I seem to remember your like maintaining that Bittergate had not impacted Pennsylvania because it had no impact. Utten nonsense -- with more than triple her advertising Obama was failing to gain traction.

Look, if Obama can't figure out who Rev. Wright is in two decades how can he possible be an effective President?

His puported objections to the Iraq War were really very similar to McCain's position -- Obama said it is a bad idea to go to war now because you haven't done x, y and z and McCain said now that you have gone to war you should do x,y and z.

Posted at April 30, 2008 10:30 AM in response to Obama To Pick Up Endorsement Of Super-Del Bruce Braley Today

Indeed it does. It is not so hopeful for the re-election prospects of the super-delegates who vote for him.

Posted at April 30, 2008 9:01 AM in response to Obama-Backer McCaskill: Dem Battle For Congressional Support Effectively Over

Obama went dirty on the Clintons with phony charges of racism very early on -- he had to split the black vote off from Hillary if he was to win the nomination and this is the method that he chose to use -- in my view this choice disqualifies him morally from the Presidency. It also dooms his chances of winning in the GE.

All this blather about hope and unity misses the distinction between a goal and an achievement.

Obama never produced the unity that was cited above.

Some choices in politic are zero-sum and the electorate needs to know which way you are going to jump when the chips are down -- Obama tried to be all things to all people -- the ideal Rorschach candidate -- and never deigned to say.

The Republicans and the Independents seem to think that he will unite us in the middle and the left thinks he will bring us left -- somebody is going to get screwed.

Posted at April 30, 2008 8:59 AM in response to Still feel like a proud member of the democratic party?