Joke

By Dustin Hoffman on the Leno show 7-4-08. Husband: Why don't you ever tell me when you're having an orgasm. Wife: Because you're never here.

Dorothy Sayers, closet contrarienne?

Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force. Lord Peter Wimsey

or

• As I grow older and older

And totter toward the tomb

I find that I care less and less

Who goes to bed with whom

More here.

Michelle Obama Lunch Seattle

is on July 17 to raise money for Chris Gregoire's campaign. Looks like it's a $200 minimum. Details here
Okay, it's for rich people. But the O's will be back, it's a historic campaign.

Eat Your Veggies, Now

More on jobs from Krugman:

The U.S. economy needs to add more than 100,000 jobs each month just to keep up with growth in the working-age population. Over the past 6 months, nonfarm payroll employment has fallen more than 400,000. So job creation this year has fallen well over a million jobs short

The Onion

I love the Onion! Thanks, Andrew Sullivan. Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency

Cowboy Love 21st Century Style

From the SacBee: Jeff Barr, left, and William Wes Wilkinson, two cowboys from Elverta who were the first male couple married in Woodland on Monday. "We met at a Gay Rodeo Association barn dance eight years ago," said Wilkinson, 43. "We're both officers of the association. … I proposed to him and he immediately proposed to me, and we accepted at the same time while we were driving down the road in our truck." The couple have 5 acres with three horses, three calves, nine chickens and two dogs. "That seems to be our family," Wilkinson said. But Barr's parents, Walter and Louise Barr of Moraga, were present to witness the ceremony. "We have to do that," Walter Barr said of supporting their son.

Obama: Not Changing on NEW FISA Position

and not changing on Iraq no matter how misreported it's been all day.
FISA statement here.
Rain is over, think I'll go feed the birds.

Recession Update

From Dean Baker at TPM:

The economy has entered a slow motion recession. It is not seeing the dramatic plunges in jobs that characterized prior recessions, but the collapse of the housing bubble is slowly sinking more and more sectors of the economy. Total private sector job gains in the Bush years may fall below 3 million by November. The annual average for the Clinton years was 2.6 million.

Woke Up This Mornin'

and it was still thundering and lightening. Over 11 hours of it by my count, extremely unusual if not uprecedented for this corner of the Pacific Northwest during my 44 years — give or take a few — out here.
I was going to look up "thunder causes" etc on Wikipedia since it's about time I learned, but got sidetracked by the FISA discussions at TPM and Glenn Greenwald. Especially interesting in light of yesterday's decision by the California federal court judge who's got all the telecom lawsuits.
He basically said Bushco's claim that as Commander in Chief over the GWT (Great War on Terror, otherwise known as America's Reichstag fire) he could violate the FISA law.
The judge, appointed by Shrimpy's father, is the third so far to say the same thing, and this decision could change some votes on the FISA bill, scheduled for the floor of the Senate on Tuesday.
In the meantime, one lightening flash hit so close it turned on my desk light, which also made an odd sound.
Guess I won't go outside to refill the birdfeeder after all.
As you were, then.

Got Your Check Yet?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

The Latest Fashion Craze? Polygamy

From the Salt Lake City Tribune:

ELDORADO, Texas - A new clothing brand may be born out of the Texas raid on a polygamous sect. FLDS women for the first time are offering their handmade, distinctive style of children's clothes to the public through the Web site fldsdress.com. Launched initially to provide Texas authorities with clothing for FLDS children in custody, the online store now is aimed at helping their mothers earn a living. The venture, which has already drawn queries from throughout the U.S., is banking on interest in modest clothes, curiosity and charity to be a success.

Universal Health Care: The Strategy

From the Boston Globe:

Senator Edward M. Kennedy's office has begun convening a series of meetings involving a wide array of healthcare specialists to begin laying the groundwork for a new attempt to provide universal healthcare, according to participants.

The discussions signal that Kennedy, who instructed aides to begin holding the meetings while he is in Massachusetts undergoing treatment for brain cancer, intends to work vigorously to build bipartisan support for a major healthcare initiative when he returns to Washington in the fall. Those involved in the discussions said Kennedy believes it is extremely important to move as quickly as possible on overhauling the healthcare system after the next president takes office in January in order to capitalize on the momentum behind a new administration. Kennedy was an early endorser of Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee who is also a member of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which Kennedy chairs. Obama's Senate staff has attended the roundtable discussions. If Obama is elected, Kennedy's effort to identify points of agreement among senators could smooth the way for the new administration to press ahead on universal healthcare, which Obama has promised to implement within four years.

Politics Is Boring, Let's Try...Pandas!

For Atlantic writer James Fallows' complete, narrated slide show, go here.

FISA: Again, Now, With Feeling

Russ Feingold and Chris Dodd got Harry Reid to postpone action on the awful omnibus bill that expands the government's aability to eavesdrop on phone and emails without meaningful court oversight and also offers immunity from some 40 lawsuits filed against the three phone companies that helped the government spy on their customers.
True Majority has a brief video of Feingold thanking people for helping pressure the Senate on the bill and an easy way to sign up for another reminder to your senators.
Here

Economy Down, Graverobbing Up

Well, they're not like digging up bodies, but they like that external bronze stuff like flower vases and grave markers.

The National Campaign

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee today began airing radio ads tying selected House Republicans to George Bush. All indications are that it's a winning strategy. Some lefty bloggers think it's dangerous. I think it's funny and memorable. Can the R's hire an Obama impersonator to do the same thing? Well, first off, Obama's not an easy parody. We'll see.

Gig Harbor Barbie: Day 9 (of 9)

Mattel recently announced the release of limited-edition Barbie Dolls for the Greater Washington market:

(Nine of these are making the email rounds among a variety of Puget Sound area women. I received it in a forward from my daughter, who works in Bremerton.
There will be one a day until they run out.)

'Gig Harbor Barbie'
The modern day homemaker Barbie is available with Ford WindStar Minivan and matching gym outfit. She gets lost easily and has no full-time occupation. Traffic jamming cell phone sold separately.

I Might Marry This Guy

except I think he's French.
Remi Gaillard.


Well, maybe not marry. In another video he knocks down a bicycler.

Woman Behind John McCain

His mom, of course. Nice profile from NYT, calling up nostalgia for privilege and courtesy, ya know, like in the movies.

Back To That Iran Thing

There's still all sorts of scary stuff pointing in the direction of a likely attack on Iran. But I leave it to those who parse the evidence with knowledge, background and, most important, reliable sources, to help me decide if I should be worried. Seymour Hersch is one of the best, and he's got a new story out in the New Yorker about Bush's $400 million black ops adventure inside the country. It doesn't help to learn that the CIA is involved. I thought the administration hated the CIA. And besides, they don't seem to ever get anything right, according to Tim Weiner's Legacy of Ashes, the best book I read last year. Anyway, I've decided to be worried again. Here's a tidbit from Hersch's story, which is quite long but always worth it.

Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program. Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of “high-value targets” in the President’s war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature. Under federal law, a Presidential Finding, which is highly classified, must be issued when a covert intelligence operation gets under way and, at a minimum, must be made known to Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and the Senate and to the ranking members of their respective intelligence committees—the so-called Gang of Eight. Money for the operation can then be reprogrammed from previous appropriations, as needed, by the relevant congressional committees, which also can be briefed.

For Bookies: Writers and Their Rooms

I don't mind working in a bit of clutter. It's your head that has to be clear.
Beryl Bainbridge
More here.

Belfair Barbie: Day 8 (of 9)

Mattel recently announced the release of limited-edition Barbie Dolls for the Greater Washington market:

(Nine of these are making the email rounds among a variety of Puget Sound area women. I received it in a forward from my daughter, who works in Bremerton.
There will be one a day until they run out.)


' Belfair Barbie'
This recently paroled Barbie comes with a 9mm handgun, a Ray Lewis knife, a Chevy with dark tinted windows, and a Meth Lab Kit. This model is only available after dark and must be paid for in cash (preferably small, untraceable bills) unless you are a cop, then we don't know what you are talking about.

Behind The 'Obama Is Muslim' Smear

The Washington Post investigates the internet evidence compiled by a young woman scholar and Obama supporter, follows the threads and identifies a few people. It's an interesting detective story, but there's really no ending, just a question.
If anybody can do this to anyone — anonymously — how to fight it?

How The World Eats

East German Family

Andrew Sullivan today linked to a Time magazine photo gallery from a fascinating book by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio called Hungry Planet. They visited and photographed 30 families around the world, their week's worth of groceries, their marketing, their favorite foods and recipes. See more here and here.

Dino Rossi Afraid To Be Republican

The state of Washington has a new electoral system for its primary in which the top two vote getters go on to the general no matter which party they belong to.
The new system also means candidates can choose any political designation they wish.
Rossi apparently has decided his "brand" should be "GOP Party" in his effort to be elected governor, TPM  reports today.
The chairman of the Republican party in Spokane county, who is running for insurance commissioner, is calling himself "No Party Preference," and admits it's a bad time to be branded Republican.

Heh Heh Heh

Andrew Sullivan calls these Mental Health Breaks.

Bainbridge Island Barbie: Day 7 (of 9)

Mattel recently announced the release of limited-edition Barbie Dolls for the Greater Washington market:

(Nine of these are making the email rounds among a variety of Puget Sound area women. I received it in a forward from my daughter, who works in Bremerton.
There will be one a day until they run out.)

'Bainbridge Barbie'
This yuppie Barbie comes with your choice of BMW convertible or Hummer H2. Included are her own Starbucks cup, credit card and country club membership. Also available for this set are Shallow Ken and Private School Skipper. You won't be able to afford any of them.

Unity Day Prep

When two superstars share the same stage, what do they share backstage?
23/6 at Huffpo publishes the secret memo.

Shelton Barbie: Day 6 (of 9)

Mattel recently announced the release of limited-edition Barbie Dolls for the Greater Washington market:

(Nine of these are making the email rounds among a variety of Puget Sound area women. I received it in a forward from my daughter, who works in Bremerton.
There will be one a day until they run out.)

' Shelton Barbie'
This pale model comes dressed in her own Wrangler jeans two sizes too small, a NASCAR t-shirt and Tweety bird tattoo on her shoulder. She has a six-pack of Bud L ight and a Hank Williams Jr. CD set. She can spit over 5 feet and kick mullet-haired Ken's butt when she is drunk. Purchase her pickup truck separately and get a confederate flag bumper sticker absolutely free.

Woman Behind Obama

Claire McCaskill, senator from Missiouri, where she helped him win the primary, is one of his closest advisors.
I love this quote:

McCaskill's advice has made a difference in more subtle ways, too. She says Obama sometimes has "a tendency to explain the intellectual rationale for something he's done before he explains what was going on in his heart."

After his remarks in Pennsylvania that rural voters bitter over the economy "cling to guns and religion," Obama tried to explain by saying his "syntax was poor."

"I teased him about using the word syntax," McCaskill said. "I said, 'Barack, where I come from that's the tax you have to pay on beer.' Sometimes it's better to say 'I screwed up' than to say 'I got the wrong syntax.'"

FISA

Senate won't vote on it until July.

Wake Up And Smell The Coffee

It could be enough.

FISA: So Much for Hope

AP says it goes to a vote Thursday.

Ethanol Bad, But What's Good?

The ethanol industry is apparently tanking because of high corn prices. Some say 123 of 160 plants in the U.S. will close within months. But I haven't seen anything saying what will happen then.

Silverdale Barbie: Day 5 (of 9)

Mattel recently announced the release of limited-edition Barbie Dolls for the Greater Washington market:

(Nine of these are making the email rounds among a variety of Puget Sound area women. I received it in a forward from my daughter, who works in Bremerton.
There will be one a day until they run out.)

'Silverdale Barbie'

This collagen injected, rhino plastic Barbie wears a leopard print outfit and drinks cosmopolitans while entertaining friends. Percocet prescription available as well as newly built, reduced price condo.

FISA Hope?

Call your senator and ask him/her to oppose the FISA compromise bill and support a filibuster.
Here's the toll-free number: 202-224-3121

Greenwald says it appears there’s a slim chance the FISA opponents can delay action in the Senate long enough for it to just go away until there’s a new administration.
Dodd and Feingold apparently have the tricks to run out the clock and legislation like this drops in importance as other things take precedence with the approaching election and other, more important bills.
Harry Reid announced yesterday he won't vote for any of it either. Further analysis by Marcy Wheeler at Firedoglake is that Reid will hold up FISA to get the housing bill the Dems want and which Bush has said he might veto, then recess for July 4 and come back, do the Iraq supplemental and lastly, FISA.
It's time enough to continue to apply pressure on Democratic senators to support a filibuster. Or not.
NOTE: FISA is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance act which, as now written, allows wholesale warrantless wiretapping of Americans and also grants amnesty to the telecommications companies that cooperated with the Bush administration's previous illegal warrantless spying.

Ann E. Dunwoody

From Huffpo via AP

WASHINGTON — For the first time in American history a woman has been chosen for promotion to four-star general.

The Pentagon announced Monday that President Bush nominated Lt. Gen. Ann E. Dunwoody to head the Army Materiel Command, responsible for equipping, outfitting and arming soldiers throughout the Army.

If confirmed by the Senate, she would be the first woman to attain the rank of a full general. By law, the Army is limited to 11 active-duty four-stars, including the Army chief of staff, Gen. George Casey.

CFCs Recycle

From NYT today:

Recycling them is about to get easier. Home Depot, the nation’s second-largest retailer, will announce on Tuesday that it will take back old compact fluorescents in all 1,973 of its stores in the United States, creating the nation’s most widespread recycling program for the bulbs.

Welcome To Clusterdouche!

Being a Brief History of Republican Product Placement Now That Their Brand is Finally Dying the Cancerous, Painful and Hopefully Merciless Death It Has So Long Deserved
and more here.

Port Orchard/Olalla Barbie: Day 4 (of 9)

Mattel recently announced the release of limited-edition Barbie Dolls for the Greater Washington market:

(Nine of these are making the email rounds among a variety of Puget Sound area women. I received it in a forward from my daughter, who works in Bremerton.
There will be one a day until they run out.)

'Port Orchard/Olalla Barbie'

This tobacco-chewing, brassy-haired Barbie has a pair of her own high-heeled sandals with one broken heel from the time she chased beer-gutted Ken out of Shelton Barbie's house. Her ensemble includes low-rise acid-washed jeans, fake fingernails, and a see-through halter-top. Also available with a mobile home.

Eye Candy

There's a reason for the category on the right, and you need to go to The Sartorialist right now. Because it's summer. Blogging.

It's Your Consitution (hint:FISA again)

UPDATE BELOW.

Okay, I know I've been harping on this a lot, but A LOT is what it takes.
Please, DO THIS.
From the Philly Inquirer today, via Greenwald:

The cover-up is nearly complete. With congressional approval, the Bush administration's warrantless eavesdropping on Americans' overseas phone calls and e-mail for nearly six years will be spared the third-degree treatment by any judge or jury.

At the same time, Bush or his successor would have virtual free rein to continue the massive antiterror surveillance sweeps of communications to and from this country.

Whatever the risk from another terror attack, Americans' privacy would be the assured casualty from these antiterror tactics. . . .Indeed, Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.) said the new Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act offered no safeguard against future lawless spying. . . .

The [telecom] lawsuits offered the best means to plumb what occurred during the spy program. That avenue would be blocked now, and it's doubtful that reviews ordered by several agencies' inspectors general will provide a better public accounting.

It's incredible to hear Democrats try to justify their capitulation on grounds that they forced Bush to accept an additional $95 billion worth of domestic spending. Unemployment insurance and higher-education benefits for veterans, great stuff. But since when is it right to horse-trade over the cherished, constitutional right to privacy?

There's still time for the Senate to stand up for the Constitution and reject this deal.

UPDATE: So, uh,TPM says this means there will be a filibuster. I dunno.

Red Hat Ladies

of Salem, OR, at Oregon Gardens. June 2008.

How To Be Womanly

An old, but always timely story from the L.A. Times.

Equal but different.

You hear that a lot on the lush green campus of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

God values men and women equally, any student here will tell you. It’s just that he’s given them different responsibilities in life: Men make decisions. Women make dinner.

This fall, the internationally known seminary – a century-old training ground for Southern Baptists – began reinforcing those traditional gender roles with college classes in homemaking. The academic program, open only to women, includes lectures on laundering stubborn stains and a lab in baking chocolate-chip cookies.

Philosophical courses such as “Biblical Model for the Home and Family” teach that God expects wives to graciously submit to their husbands’ leadership. A model house, to be completed by next fall, will allow women to get credit toward bachelor’s degrees by learning how to set tables, sew buttons and sustain lively dinnertime conversation.

It all sounds wonderful to sophomore Emily Felts, 19, who signed up as soon as she arrived on campus this fall.

Several relatives have told Felts that she’s selling herself short. They want her to become a lawyer, and she agrees she’d make a good one. But that’s not what she wants to do with her life.

More to the point, it’s not what she believes God wants of her.

“My created purpose as a woman is to be a helper,” Felts said firmly. “This is a college education that I can use.”

How Retired Am I?

So retired that I didn't believe it is Tuesday, not Monday, until noon. Good thing I didn't email that blogger at WashBlog and tell him to correct his time dating system. Oh, wait.

Sun Blogging

Best outdoor chair evah! Go buy one. It folds into its canopy, which becomes the carrying case with handles adjustable for back packing it.
Mine were free from generous son-in-law.

Appeasement

Andrew Sullivan has some good stuff today.

Those Damned Hippies

One of Andrew Sullivan's readers offers some personal insight:

As someone who was definitely a Hippie let me expand upon your statement,

"But in the reaction to a doomed war, in their sense that mankind faced an existential crisis as destructive weapons technology spread, in their understanding that Christianity was not, at its core, socially productive or in any familiar sense, socially conservative, the hippies were onto something."

Those aspects of Hippie culture, to which I subscribed and lent what leadership abilities I then had, that were most critical were definitely based upon an understanding of essential Essene Christianity.

The culture was a communal, love based collaboration in a spiritual quest to bring peace, end bigotry - then against African and Native Americans, shortly adding women and not too long after Gays - stopping nuclear proliferation and war, and saving the planet from the rampages of unfettered exploitation. (Love in the Christian sense, though at 19, when I first got involved the sexual aspects were pretty attractive too.)

In a very strong sense, the hippies were a Conservative force. One that believed in Jeffersonian agrarian principles, practiced the Golden Rule, and direct religious experience, often enabled or enhanced by the use of psychotropic drugs such as Marijuana, Mescaline, psilocybin and LSD.

One of my favorite anecdotes of the period was being driven in Northern Arizona by an attorney who'd agreed to take a case for my room mate and me because it was on his way to a meeting to hear Barry Goldwater speak. We spoke about the war in Vietnam, the riots that had occurred after the assassination of MLK and the shooting of Bobby Kennedy and George Wallace, and the need to preserve the fantastic landscape through which we were driving. I remember the conversation because we agreed that the rioting after MLK seemed to be a reasonable, through regrettable response to that outrage (this 1968 ultra conservative was pro civil rights), that it was very frightening that there were forces willing to assassinate leaders rather than vote for them, and most startling, that we agreed that if we were unwilling to do what was required to win in Vietnam, we should leave. We even agreed that to win, would probably destroy Vietnam to the degree that the victory would be Pyrrhic.

And it should come as no surprise that preserving Arizona's beauty was a shared wish, though I suspect on many of the aspects of that topic we now hold important but which were then relatively unknown by most people, we'd have disagreed. All I know is we both hated the cancerous growth that was Phoenix. Even then.

Of course, Hippidom was co opted by the greater culture within the context of fashions and music, AIDS and other STD's put the kibosh on free love, and Nixon and Republicans of the day so frightened the older generation about their own kids that being against war and thermonuclear weapons was seen as treasonous. And not actually being Jesus meant that turning the other cheek and acting peaceably ended with the police riots in Chicago and the Hell's Angels at Altamont.

Oh, Noes!

James Dobson Accuses Obama of Distorting Bible

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - As Barack Obama broadens his outreach to evangelical voters, one of the movement's biggest names, James Dobson, accuses the likely Democratic presidential nominee of distorting the Bible and pushing a "fruitcake interpretation" of the Constitution.

Port Townsend Barbie: Day Three (of Nine)

Mattel recently announced the release of limited-edition Barbie Dolls for the Greater Washington market:

(Nine of these are making the email rounds among a variety of Puget Sound area women. I received it in a forward from my daughter, who works in Bremerton.
There will be one a day until they run out.)

' Port Townsend Barbie'

This doll is made of actual tofu. She has long straight brown hair, arch-less feet, hairy armpits, no makeup and Birkenstocks with white socks. She prefers that you call her Willow . She does not want or need a Ken doll, but if you purchase two Port Townsend Barbies and the optional Subaru wagon, you get a rainbow flag bumper sticker for free.

Filibuster FISA 'Comprmise'

Petition Dodd, Feingold and Obama.

Save Public Broadcasting

The vote is tomorrow. Sign the petition here.

RIP George Carlin

But we will always have the 7 words.

Bremerton Barbie: Day Two (of Nine)

Mattel recently announced the release of limited-edition Barbie Dolls for the Greater Washington market:

(Nine of these are making the email rounds among a variety of Puget Sound area women. I received it in a forward from my daughter, who works in Bremerton.
There will be one a day until they run out.)


'Bremerton Barbie'


This Barbie now comes with a stroller and 2 infant dolls. Optional accessories include a GED and bus pass. White boy Gangsta Ken and his 1979 Caddy were available, but are now very difficult to
find since the addition of the infant.

There's Google and Then

there's Pipl. Just how much of you is out there on the intertubes, anyway?
If you guess way too much, you'd be right.

Snicker Sunday

Gail Collins of the NYT at her best today on choosing VPs.

I’m praying that McCain selects Mitt Romney so I can repeatedly revisit the time Mitt drove to Canada with the family dog on the station-wagon roof.

Or perhaps they could both pick Michael Bloomberg...

...Other than that, picking a running mate is — no disrespect intended — like picking a pet. How much time are you planning to spend with the little fellow? How much exercise will he be getting on an average day? On one extreme, you have the William Wheeler model (“There’s the living room. Go find a corner and sleep in it.”) On the other end, there’s the Cheney version in which the pet takes over the checkbook, diversifies the family investment portfolio and starts strafing at the neighbor’s cat.

Watch 6 Minutes on FISA

then Do This.


Thanks, Julimac

P.S. My letter to bburton@barackobama.com

Dear Mr. Burton,
I have been a supporter of and contributor to Barack Obama since the Iowa caucus.
I believed he would protect the Constitution. His reluctant support for the newly revised FISA bill, with its enlargement of the government's power to spy on Americans, is hugely disappointing.
I am asking that Obama show us the courage and hope we need to recover our rights, filibuster the telecom immunity provision as you promised, and demand Congress substitute an extension of the PAA for the fatally flawed bill.
If he does not take a leadership position on this vital issue, my dollars in the future will go toward defeating the Democrats who have sold us out.

Sincerely,

History Sunday

Description: Photograph of Letta Crapo-Smith taken by F. Friend. Annotated on reverse by Detroit painter Helen Keep, "Letta Crapo-Smith, daughter of Mr. & Mrs. H. H. H. Crapo-Smith. The first person from Detroit to have a picture in the Paris Salon, [signed] Helen L. Keep." Crapo-Smiths (1862-1921) was a painter from Detroit, Michigan.

The Smithsonian has a photostream on Flickr of all kinds of pictures from its collection available for your viewing and use. At last, your taxpayer dollars work for you.

What Is This FISA Thing

that I keep yammering about?
Okay, my writing skills and patience have dwindled. I just want you to read my mind.
So, here's the straight skinny from semiloon at Greenwald's site:

You see we already have a mechanism (enacted into law with the original FISA) where telecoms can be compelled to cooperate with the government.

It's called a "warrant."

When a warrant is presented to a telecom to enact a wiretap, that assures the telecom that the requested tap is legitimate and that a judge (a non-elected and presumably non-political entity) decided that there was compelling evidence to issue the warrant.

The problem with "warrant-less wiretapping" is that there is no judicial overview of the process. The government goes to the telecoms and says, "Hey we want to wiretap a whole bunch of communications, maybe millions of people, and by the way we don't have a warrant, but if you cooperate with us (i.e. look the other way) you'll get a bunch of big government contracts that will make you millions of dollars.

The telecoms knew this was illegal because the law clearly requires warrants, but said,"Sure, we'll do this, and we especially like the part of about the millions of dollars, but if the shit goes down, you government guys have got to get our backs so we don't get our asses sued off by all the people we illegally spied on. And oh yeah, we'll kick back some of those millions in the form of lobbyist contributions."

And the government said, "No worries, we'll get your back because if this shit goes south some of us here might go to prison, so we're on the same team."

Breaking: Obama Ahead 15 Points

in Washington state. Newsweek also has him up 15 points nationally, but Newsweek polls are notoriously volatile.
And...we're 4 months out. His to lose, in other words.

Barbie Joke Day One

Mattel recently announced the release of limited-edition Barbie Dolls for the Greater Washington market:

(Nine of these are making the email rounds among a variety of Puget Sound area women. I received it in a forward from my daughter, who works in Bremerton.
There will be one a day until they run out.)

' Issaquah Barbie'
This princess Barbie is sold only at Nordstrom's in Bellevue . She comes with an assortment of Kate Spade Handbags, a Lexus SUV, a long-haired foreign dog named Honey and a cookie-cutter house. Available with or without tummy tuck and face lift. Workaholic Ken sold only in conjunction with the augmented version.

FISA: Do This

Yesterday, someone in conversation reminded me that Jimmy Carter predicted that Americans in the future would have far less freedom than they had when he was president. It was eery, since I'd almost resigned myself to Obama's declaration of reluctant support for the new electronic spying bill.
It's a horror even without telecom immunity for past cooperation with Bush administration illegal surveillance.
Glenn Greenwald is fuming but I'd been on the fence. I didn't want to abandon my faith in Obama's promise. But I can't disagree with this.

No political leader merits uncritical devotion -- neither when they are running for office nor when they occupy it -- and there are few things more dangerous than announcing that you so deeply believe in the Core Goodness of a political leader, or that we face such extreme political crises that you trust and support whatever your Leader does, even when you don't understand it or think that it's wrong. That's precisely the warped authoritarian mindset that defined the Bush Movement and led to the insanity of the post-9/11 Era, and that uncritical reverence is no more attractive or healthy when it's shifted to a new Leader.

There's one particular promise he made that we should hold him to. Back when the bad Rockefeller bill was before the Senate, his spokesman Bill Burton promised Obama would support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.
Greenwald gives us Burton's email address and urges us to send him a message demanding that he abide by that promise.

bburton@barackobama.com

Yesterday, even after Obama's disheartening announcement about his position on the new FISA bill, I posted the link where you can donate to him. I was planning on doing that again.
Now, I've decided to send my money to the coalition that is raising money to oppose Democrats who are bad on this crucial constitutional issue. It includes the ACLU and Ron Paul "money bombers."
Greenwald explains what they're doing here.
You can donate here.
Oh, and I'm telling Burton what I'm doing and why.

UPDATE: I can't believe I spent hours reading all the comments on the Greenwald blog, but I learned a few things.

You can also go to my.barackobama.com and express dissatisfaction, although those who did said it was not satisfying.

And, you can call his campaign office, 866-675-2008, #6 during weekdays and talk to a real person.
Someone on the comments thread said s/he was assured that Obama can and will kill the immunity provision.
Next week, we'll see.

Vely Intelesting

Remember Arte Johnson as the Nazi in the bushes on Laugh In?
I felt a little like him this morning, lurking through a lot of vely intelesting comments responding to Steve Rosenbaum's assertion at Huffpo that McCain will decline the Republican nomination because he can't win and a fresh new team will emerge to put on a helluva show for the last two months of the campaign.
I'm neither convinced nor unconvinced, but I do believe that Donald Duck could beat McCain.

So -- before the Democrats go and game out how to beat McCain, it may be worth thinking about what happens when he says he won't accept the nomination. For the Republicans, a wide open convention would be both good theater and good politics.

Aw, Jeebus, He Is A Politician

Obama mostly caves on the FISA bill, although he says he'll work in the Senate to remove telecom immunity.
I'm not even going to look at Greenwald today. Going to the garden to eat worms.
Tune in next week.

UPDATE: Harry Reid says he's going to try to separate out the immunity portion of the bill so those opposed to it can express their opinion in a vote. But he doesn't know if that will work, either. That gives Obama cover.
What do I think. There are two theories about this. Pelosi and Reid were among the "gang of 8" the congressional leaders who the White House can claim were fully briefed about the surveillance when it was illegal.
Hoyer was, too, I suppose.
Plus the Dems believe they're vulnerable at election time on the national security issue if they continue to oppose the bill and it would be bad for their presidential aspirations as well as ability to take bigger majorities in Congress.
You can't make change if you don't get elected.
Is it better to fight like hell and lose? Or do they overestimate the effectiveness of such an argument?
I don't want to lose. I also don't want to give the telecoms immunity, but that's probably going to happen, the Senate signed off on it before. Feh (spits)!

Time to Pony Up

Barack Obama's campaign goal is 750,000 donors by July 4.
If you were holding off during primary season, kick him some love. It doesn't have to be much and it's easy and safe online.

FISA: Last Chance

So, too many Democratic cowards in the House, after raising our hopes by rejecting the Senate bill with telecom immunity, voted this morning in favor of the so-called "compromise" bill cooked up behind closed doors and only made available to members yesterday.
In my state of Washington, my Congressman Norm (Norm!) Dicks, who will never have serious opposition and is not considered a Blue Dog, voted for it.
Rick Larsen, Jay Inslee and Jim McDermott voted against it.
NOW WHAT?
It goes to the Senate next week. Is it worth a filibuster? If I were a vote counting Senator, I would save my energy for something more likely to succeed and issue a sternly worded statement of condemnation.
So, I'm not urging anybody to contact Patty and Maria to urge them to filibuster. They're solid votes against a winning bill.
However, if you want to chime in anyway, here's the info.
Murray
Ph-202-224-2621
F 202-224=0238

Cantwell
Ph-202-224-3441
F-202-228-0514

Free FAX

Fast Eddie Obama

I think David Brooks is a no-nothing schmuck and Republican mouthpiece who gets paid to mislead and lie.
He's decided that Obama is a politician after all and that people like me didn't know that.
But it's an entertaining column.

On the one hand, Obama did sell out the primary cause of his professional life, all for a tiny political advantage. If he’ll sell that out, what won’t he sell out? On the other hand, global affairs ain’t beanbag. If we’re going to have a president who is going to go toe to toe with the likes of Vladimir Putin, maybe it is better that he should have a ruthlessly opportunist Fast Eddie Obama lurking inside.

All I know for sure is that this guy is no liberal goo-goo. Republicans keep calling him naïve. But naïve is the last word I’d use to describe Barack Obama. He’s the most effectively political creature we’ve seen in decades. Even Bill Clinton wasn’t smart enough to succeed in politics by pretending to renounce politics.

UPDATE: Brooks' column basically blasts Obama for flip-flopping on campaign finance and previous perceived reversals (Rev. Wright) while at the same time seeming to appreciate his advanced political skills.

Wonder what he thinks of today's news that MoveOn will not activate its 527 out of respect for Obama's wishes that no independent groups raise and spend big money in support of him.

If you don't remember what a 527 is, think Swiftboating. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth was the group that slimed Kerry in 04, but as it turns out, MoveOn was one of the top 527s that cycle.

There is no limit to the money they can raise, the amount donors can give and it's a big hole in campaign finance reform. The fact that he's actively discouraging them says a lot about his seriousness. Or, it could be a matter of message control, since campaigns are not allowed to coordinate with 527s.

Anyway, for what it's worth, seems like a good move and shows his confidence in ability to raise money.

Bushism No. 5,823

From Catholic journalist Rocco Palmo:

POTUS Demotes Pope

The protocol's never been any sort of state secret: the Pope is addressed as "Your Holiness" or, by his own, "Most Holy Father."

But as he began his farewell visit to B16 last Friday, President Bush -- whose administration has shown a bizarre, unchecked penchant for the, er, unique term "His Holy Father" over the years -- took the salutation to an even odder place:

"Your Eminence, you're looking good," Bush told the pope.

For the record, the greeting would've been perfectly delivered... were the President giving it to a cardinal.

Obama's First GE Ad

Starts tomorrow in 18 states.

War Crimes

There's not likely to be trials here, but they're getting ready for them in Europe, according to Scott Horton in The New Republic.

But Colin Powell's chief of staff, Colonel Larry Wilkerson, nails it: "Haynes, Feith, Yoo, Bybee, Gonzales and--at the apex--Addington, should never travel outside the U.S., except perhaps to Saudi Arabia and Israel. They broke the law; they violated their professional ethical code. In the future, some government may build the case necessary to prosecute them in a foreign court, or in an international court." Augusto Pinochet made a trip to London, and his life was never the same afterwards. The Bush administration officials who pushed torture will need to be careful about their travel plans.

Ad of the Year

Priceless new Heinz ad in Britain, via Andrew Sullivan.

FISA Action

You can tell Nancy Pelosi to pull the bad FISA bill from the floor, preventing the vote scheduled for Friday.
It's likely her phones are jammed, so I'm including FAX numbers and you can FAX for free here.
Pelosi, Phone 202-225-4965, FAX 202-225-4965.

Ask Obama to take a public stand again reiterating his opposition to telecom immunity.
Obama Senate office 202-225-4131, FAX 202-228-4260

How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic

Bookmark this, you may need it some day. Pass it along.

FISA: Awful, Awful News

A so-called compromise that is the same thinly veiled immunity for telecoms that broke the law and spied on Americans is about to be voted on in the House tomorrow. Democrats engineered it under apparently heavy pressure from the telecoms.
We have been betrayed.
There are two things to do.
Join the new coalition forming under the aegis of the ACLU to fight for all constitutional issues.
And call Obama and tell his campaign what's expected.
Read all about it in Glenn Greenwald's piece today, with links for action.
I feel sick.

Iraq War: By the Numbers

We all know it's about the oil, but I'd never seen the actual dollar figures. Andrew Sullivan dug it up today, the day news surfaced about the Iraqi government's no-bid contracts for its oil — at U.S. direction presumably — to a consortium of four western companies — Exxon, BP, a French and a Dutch firm.
The numbers? $30 trillion worth over time. And the war has cost us $1 trillion. Such a deal.
More here, and more links, if you want.

I'm Voting Republican

This video is going viral. I've received it from several friends in the last few days. Go to this link to pass it on via email. Spread the word.

ACTION ALERT: FISA

The ACLU has a site up where you can automatically write your congress critter about the new sham "compromise" on telecom immunity that basically lets all the companies off the hook for cooperating with the administration to illegally spy on our phone calls and emails.
Go there and sign up now. It was massive public response that killed action on an earlier bill and it needs to happen again.

More Women I Wouldn't Vote For

The Guardian

The whole "vote Hillary, elect a woman president" meme was annoying for any number of reasons, not least of which that we wouldn't be urging feminists to elect a Condi Rice or Margaret Thatcher.
There's a long list of women we shouldn't have in power, just as long as the list of men.
Here's my most recent favorite, retired Lt. Col. Diane Beaver (quit snickering), who was the top military lawyer at Gitmo.
AP reports that in a recently revealed memo:

Lt. Col. Diane Beaver, explains that the Defense Department had made a practice of hiding prisoners who were being treated harshly, even abusively, from the International Committee of the Red Cross, a non-governmental body empowered to monitor compliance with Geneva Convention rules for the treatment of military prisoners.

Beaver also confirmed that the military was secretly using previously forbidden techniques, such as sleep deprivation, but hiding them so as not to draw "negative attention," according to minutes of the meeting.

"Officially it is not happening," Beaver said, according to minutes from the meeting. "It is not being reported officially. The ICRC is a serious concern. They will be in and out, scrutinizing our operations, unless they are displeased and decide to protest and leave. This would draw a lot of negative attention."

Beaver said interrogators should "curb the harsher operations while ICRC is around."

Beaver was speaking at an Oct. 2, 2002 meeting between CIA and military lawyers and military intelligence officials on how to counter the resistance of Guantanamo detainees to military interrogation.

Beaver's comments suggest that the CIA's practice of hiding unregistered "ghost detainees" from the ICRC at military jails may have been as much in service to the Pentagon's interrogation program as it was to the CIA's.

A senior CIA lawyer at the meeting, John Fredman, explained that whether harsh interrogation amount to torture "is a matter of perception." The only sure test for torture is if the detainee died.

Michigan Sen. Carl Levin is holding hearings on all this today, and maybe we'll get to see Diane in person. Oh, goody.

I say, put her on trial. And all the rest of them.

U.S. Attorneys Scandal

Hmm, take a little vacation and news breaks out.
This is really exciting to me because Talking Points Memo was all over it last year at about this time and is the real reason I became addicted to the internet, there was something new every day.
Here's a brief folo to yesterday's news, which I will have to find. Updates later.

The Times has a bit more detail about the on-going Inspector General's and Office of Professional Responsibility probe's into the US Attorney firings. Seems, as we learned yesterday from the Wall Street Journal, that Bradley Schlozman has moved furthest along toward potential criminal charges. Meanwhile Alberto Gonzales' attorney, George J. Terwilliger III, assures the Times that Gonzales is not the target of any criminal investigation tied to the US Attorney firings but he was not willing to give any such assurance about whether his client is being looked at for perjury in the NSA wiretaps case.

Should You See It?

Reel Geezers do movie reviews.

On Vacation

From trail along Willamette River, Eugene, OR, 6-12-2008

Here's Nora

to entertain while I'm on vacation.

On Vacation

Meringue with lavender sauce and strawberries with black pepper ice cream at the King Estate Winery near Eugene, Or. 6-12-08

On Vacation

On Vacation

Kucinich Reads Articles of Impeachment

On the floor of the House on Monday.
Not sure of the parliamentary significance of actually reading them, unless it then forces some further action, like scheduled hearings.
Democrats.com is pushing this and you can sign the petition of support, etc., here.

Update: Nobody at Kos thinks anything will come of it, but you can thank him here reply@kucinichforcongress.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a former Democratic presidential contender, said Monday he wants the House to consider a resolution to impeach President Bush.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi consistently has said impeachment was "off the table."

Kucinich, D-Ohio, read his proposed impeachment language in a floor speech. He contended Bush deceived the nation and violated his oath of office in leading the country into the Iraq war.

Kucinich introduced a resolution last year to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. That resolution was killed, but only after Republicans initially voted in favor of taking up the measure to force a debate.

Kucinich won 50 percent of the vote in a five-way House Democratic primary in March, beating back critics who said he ignored business at home to travel the country in his quest to be president.

On Vacation

View from the front porch, Somewhere in the Woods, Jefferson County, WA.

Foodie Alert

Wanna be a locavore, getting most of your food locally to reduce the carbon footprint while supporting local farmers?
Sounds good, but as the saying goes, common sense has one big problem, it may be common but it may not make sense.
Consider a study cited in this New Republic article:
.

..it's striking to learn that, on average, replacing just 21 percent of the red meat in the "typical" diet with fish or chicken does as much, emissions-wise, as buying everything in that same diet locally. Another big surprise is that the far-flung globalization of the food chain that Pollan describes seems to have had a relatively small impact on global greenhouse-gas emissions, in part because ocean freight still accounts for 99 percent of all international transport, and that uses far less energy than trucking. That's unexpected, and it sounds like even the authors were surprised by the result.

Web 2.0 And Campaign 2008

Or Comment O' Teh Day
From Rabbitsmrgasbord at Talking Points Memo:

...if the hard-core Hillary supporters are discovering the intertubes could McCain supporters be far behind? Next thing you know they'll discover the googler, and the utube that lets them post videos from those newfangled cameras that don't use film, and then who knows where it will all lead? Next thing you know they'll all be on face spaces and such, and they'll be all blobbing about where the best early-bird specials are and twiddering about much prune juice they drank this morning. It's the beginning of the end, I tells ya.

Attention Bookies

Amazon hides its Listmania in apparent embarassment because it's so chaotic, according to Virginia Heffernan, who writes the The Medium blog for the New York Times.
I read Virginia so you don't have to.
So here's everything from Fun Books About Chickens to I dunno what, cuz I haven't read that far yet.
And then there's Unspun, which is Amazon's attempt to organize the chaos.
So jump in, you might find some whole new category for the summer.
CORRECTION: These are not just lists of books, they are lists of anything, although Amazon was hoping for PRODUCTS that it sells, I guess.

Quote O' Teh Week (Last Week)

In reality there is only one candidate. Barack Obama. In November he will win or he will lose. John McCain is relevant only in so far as he is not Barack Obama. The Senator from Arizona is incapable of energizing his party, brings no new people to the polls, and has a personality that is best kept under wraps.

Arch-conservative Bay Buchanan writing in Human Events June 4.

Republicans are worried, says Thomas Edsall of Huffpo.

Me, I think it'll be a landslide for Obama and way clear long before November.

Free Obama Bumper Stickers

from MoveOn here.

High Gas Prices: It's All Phil Gramm's Fault

The media in the last week has featured several revealing articles detailing former Texas (where else?) Sen. Phil Gramm's involvement with a large Swiss bank that is caught not only in the mortgage crisis but in illegal financial activity. He has been a lobbyist with USB — or is it UBS? — until very recently and continues to be a vice president.
Gramm is John McCain's "economic advisor."
What has not yet grabbed the media's attention is Gramm's leadership role in midnight amendment to 2000 legislation — the Enron loophole — that eliminated government oversight — that bad, bad government regulation — of futures markets.
Sen. Maria Cantwell chaired the Senate Commerce Committee hearing last week on the whole thing, which was shown on C-Span. You can watch and listen to the whole two hours here.
But if you don't want to, here's the bottom line:
You're paying about $1-$2 a gallon too much because of unregulated market manipulation and speculation.
Yeah, supply/demand is in there, and the falling dollar. So is hoarding. So is producer (e.g. the Saudi's) reluctance.
And yeah, we need to develop alternative energy.
But, $1-$2 a gallon is what this travesty of deregulation under the Republicans is costing you.
Oh, yeah, George Soros was there to testify. He's been all over the Hill lately. That must be killing the R's, to have to listen to their Great Satan.
But the hero of the day was Michael Greenberger, a law professor and former director of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission under Clinton.
He's enraged. He said the FTC needs to be told to buck up and do something now and federal law allows it under the Administrative Procedures Act. Futhermore, this deregulation not only allows the oil speculation, but is behind the food and mortgage derivatives speculation.
There. It's all the fault of Phil Gramm, busy whispering "more, more deregulation" in McCain's ear.

...the flowers burn

and I want
to live my life all over again, to begin again,

to be utterly
wild.

A Meeting, Mary Oliver

Big Pink Columbine

Don't Watch Sunday Talking Heads

because Jason Linkins at Huffpo does it for you and he's mean to everybody. If you don't get one inside joke, just go to the next one.

The Other War

Stunning photos from Afghanistan, take a look. Via Andrew Sullivan.

When I am President, we will wage the war that has to be won, with a comprehensive strategy with five elements: getting out of Iraq and on to the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan; developing the capabilities and partnerships we need to take out the terrorists and the world's most deadly weapons; engaging the world to dry up support for terror and extremism; restoring our values; and securing a more resilient homeland.

The first step must be getting off the wrong battlefield in Iraq, and taking the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Barack Obama, Aug. 1, 2007

Hillary's Concession Speech

is 29 minutes, and pretty good, according to this TPM commenter.

After her much criticized speech earlier this week, I dug through my record collection to find my vinyl copy of Ted Kennedy's 'concession' speeech from the 1980 Democratic Convention. (Yep--they released one and I bought it 27+ yrs ago). It was, from beginning to end Ted Kennedy's acceptance speech. It contained one sentence, in the final paragraph, acknowledging Carter's nomination. (I congratulate President Carter on his victory). Other than that, he essentially claimed the nomination that the voters had given to Carter months before. Standing at the podium of the Convention itself, Kennedy let the nation know he believed he deserved the nomination.

That speech reminded me all over again of the legitimacy of the charge that Kennedy tore the party apart over his failed ambition.

Compared to that speech, and even in its own right, Hillary's speech was a model of grace and reconciliation. Once the speech is published, it will be easy to nibble away at the sentences where she held on to this or that difference with Sen Obama. But those who expected Hillary to give Obama a pinched and begrudging support need to admit that they were very wrong. Who gives a damn if it took her a couple of extra days to do it?

It's always nice to have a little historical perspective.

Must Watch TV

I can't recommend more highly this sweet little documentary, which looks like it was made in Seattle.
It's a series of very candid interviews with mostly gay people of all ages about their relationships and their life histories. They're largely charming and very human. I loved this movie.
KCTS Ch. 9 in Seattle is showing it Wednesday, June 11 at 8:30 p.m.
Check your other local PBS stations for other showings.
Oops, it's called Inlaws and Outlaws.

Kick back, It's Sunday

viburnum maresii