http://www.phillesh.net/philzonepages/friends_stuff/setlists/080204.html

Typographical humor. New word:

keming. noun. The result of improper kerning.

anybody handicapping obamas veep options?

sen. webb (va)
sen. dodd (ct)
sen. biden (please god, no)
sen. ben nelson (ne)
gov napolitano (az) woman
gov sebelius (ks) woman
gov kaine (va)

i read somewhere that edwards doesnt want to be a veep candidate again.

anyone else?

museums are teaching tools.

manuka honey oil soap

Toshiba withdraws from HD-DVD market. Blu-ray wins.

the history channel is a joke.

All over the inter-tubes today ... Hillary tendrá problemas en Tejas

I'm having trouble finding some info. Michigan and Florida have 313 democratic delegates between them (these are the delegates that were stripped.) But how does that break down?

Florida went Clinton 49.7%, Obama 33, Edwards 14.4. Michigan was Clinton 55.4%, Uncommitted 39.9. So assuming these states assign delegates proportionally it's easy to see how you could seat Florida - but Michigan really seems unfair. Obviously a lot of that 39.9 would have gone to Obama.

If they are sat, how many delegates does it give each of them? What's the best case for Hillary, ~160 more delegates? Obama is harder to guess without knowing the Florida/Michigan delegate split, but something around 50 from Florida? So best for Hillary is a little over 100 delegate gain on Obama?

I'm trying to figure how much of a lead Obama needs to be able to just agree to seat those two states and still have the lead.

Barkley for Gov. 2014. Go Charles. Anybody who can make Wolf that uncomfortable is okay in my book.

We have seen the consequence of such a liberation from both types of law in Iraq, in Guantanamo, and all places where extraordinary rendition, kidnappings, torture, and detentions without due process have been practiced by U.S. authorities. Hillary Clinton may be an opponent of all that, but she does not attack the problem at its roots even if she goes further than McCain in the one and only case of Iraq. The empire is not only Iraq, and presidential power in an imperial setting would remain a danger also after an Iraqi withdrawal, assuming she would carry it out. As the famous colonel in the film Battle of Algiers said to the assembled French journalists: if you want an Algerie Francaise, you must put up with all that. If you want to protect the American empire as is . . . if you are unwilling to negotiate with all our adversaries without pre-conditions that is of course the pre-condition of orderly withdrawal…then you must put up with the means necessary to protect it. Clinton’s positions on negotiations with Iran indicate that she has not yet learned much from the past, indeed from the war in Iraq itself. And McCain is one of the most aggressive American politicians with respect to both continuing the war in Iraq and risking a new one with Iran. Only Obama, not Clinton, nor McCain in spite of his loud verbal opposition to torture is ready to do what it would take to end the situation in which there is any kind of imperial rationale (however mistaken technically) for torture. Obama (tutored here by Zbigniew Brzezinski) is the only realist among the three candidates still standing, in spite of his soaring rhetoric.

All polls currently indicate that the great majority of the country is with Obama on questions of foreign policy, and has been for two or more years, though they may not yet correctly identify his views on all the issues. But given the threat of recession, the issue of external affairs retreated behind that of the economy. In general this would be an advantage to the Democrats. It is also to Hillary Clinton’s advantage, because of the superior track record of the Clinton administration, her own obvious competence, and better thought out position on very much needed health care reform – where she is an expert paradoxically enough because of her dramatic failure in 1993, that led to the so-called “Republican Revolution in 1994. The Obama idea of “change” has to do mostly with the large issue of identity and foreign policy posture in the world, while Clinton’s slogan experience refers to her managerial abilities in the domestic sphere where there is very little difference between the two equally liberal (in the American sense = social liberal) Democratic candidates. In spite of small, probably tactical differences, they both have dramatic health care reform as the centerpiece of their social program, and they would both pay for it the same way, by refusing to make the outrageous Bush tax cuts that produced huge deficits permanent for the wealthy. They are lucky, because unlike Kerry in 2004 they don’t have to promise to pass new legislation to finance health expenditures . . . all they have to do is the much easier thing, namely to oppose new legislation to make reduction of governmental resources permanent. This will still be called raising taxes by the Republicans; but the stress will be on rescinding tax cuts to the wealthy! In any case, the Democratic electorate is asked to decide whether the more experienced but more polarizing Clinton, or the more novice Obama who is willing to work with Republicans is likely to accomplish a similar domestic agenda. And we still do not know how they will decide this question.

dumb and dumber in america

next thurs i will be attending the premiere of the "rock opera" Tonya and Nancy, and just heard Ms. Harding herself will be in attendance. all in a day's work. http://www.oregonlive.com/performance/index.ssf/2008/02/real_tonya_will_rock_out_with.html

best sandwiches

Comcast to FCC: We block only 'excessive' traffic

space shuttle images

with 6% reporting

Donna Edwards	2,510	55%
Al Wynn *	1,884	41%

as the kids say ... w00t!

angels want to wear my red shoes. (tcm 1030est)

Roy Scheider RIP

Wild Toronto cartoons from Rosemary Mosco of Bird and Moon.

beantown

9th st espresso

la columbe coffee

New York Times reporter Phillip Shenon joins us to talk about his new book, The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation. Shenon says 9/11 Commission executive director Philip Zelikow had close ties to both Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Bush political adviser Karl Rove. He suggests that Zelikow sought to minimize the Bush administration’s responsibility for failing to prevent the September 11th attacks. [includes rush transcript–partial]

Michael Pollan takes aim at “nutritionism” in his new book
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By SARAH KERR

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We prepare our meals from plants and animals—a fact we can choose either to note with some humility or to hide from our awareness by forgetting. This has been a recurring theme in Michael Pollan’s books of late. Like all good writers, Pollan aims to describe what he sees as precisely as he can. But this does not lead him to a showily fine prose style. That would be an aesthetic approach, and though Pollan often worries that we’ve lost the sense of pleasure, he is very much the ethicist—and, if we’re honest, he is once in a while even a scold. This is happily offset by a sly modesty (“By now,” he self-accuses in 1997’s A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder, “you have probably noticed a tendency of mine to lean rather heavily on words and theories in my dealings with the world”), a deftness at animating philosophical problems, and a knack—unusual in books that seek to change minds and habits—for sustaining an atmosphere of suspense.