The Economist calls it like it is

A few years ago, for Christmas, my dad started sending me The Economist magazine. Lately, for Christmas, he renews that subscription (at my begging). 

Today a reporter for The Economist called the shots as he sees them:

"I’m not exactly sure when it happened, but my will has been broken. I’ve realised that covering Mrs Clinton's campaign without explicitly stating that it has turned into a win-at-all-costs operation fueled by phony outrage, hypocritical proclamations and absurd notions of who is electable and who is not is an exercise in deliberate deception, and I can't do that. Perhaps I am weaker than my colleagues, but a certain fatigue sets in when trying to sort through it all. Mrs Clinton does have substance, and some well-thought-out policy prescriptions, but did you know Barack Obama is an elitist? Never mind that the Clintons largely agree with what Mr Obama said, or meant to say.

Perhaps it is because Mrs Clinton is the underdog that the tone of her campaign is so different from Mr Obama’s. Her efforts to connect with different voting blocs have not worked—one day she’s a sniper-dodging commander-in-chief, the next she’s a gun-shooting woman of the people. Most of the time she simply looks like a caricature of the voters she’s trying to lure. And when it comes down to policy, there are simply not enough big differences between the two candidates to allow her to catch up. So she must make Mr Obama look unelectable. She must go negative. And she has.

That’s fine, but let’s be forthright about it. This is no longer a campaign based on ideas. It is a campaign focused on tearing down Mr Obama. We all know that’s her only shot at the nomination. I’m tired of pretending otherwise." (Tip to Sullivan.)

Torture

President Bush, May 24, 2004: Abu Ghraib is a "...symbol of disgraceful conduct by a FEW American troops who dishonored our country..." (my emphasis). Bush's speech is here.

The Bush Administration in a 2003 internal memo: "we do not believe that Congress enacted general criminal provisions such as the prohibitions against ... torture pursuant to any express authority that would allow it to infringe on the president's constitutional control over the operation of the armed forces in wartime."
The long memo is here. Read about it here and here.

Humor Break

This is pure joy. It's a short clip and you'll be smiling when you're done, guaranteed. Hope you're all doing well.

Hillary: "I remember landing under sniper fire.."

Life

On planet Earth: The Encyclopedia of Life
On a distant planet: Hubble finds methane

History in the making

Barack Obama, March 18, 2008:
"...but race is an issue that I believe this country cannot afford to ignore right now....The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through, a part of our union that we have not yet made perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care or education or the need to find good jobs for every American.

For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away, nor has the anger and bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends, but it does find voice in the barber shop or the beauty shop, around the kitchen table. At times that anger is exploited by politicians to gin up votes along racial lines or to make up for a politician's own failings, and occasionally it finds voice in the church on a sunday morning in the pulpit and in the pews.... That anger is not always productive. Indeed all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems, it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity within the African American community in our own conditions. It prevents the African American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real. It is powerful. And to simply wish it away, to condemn it with out understanding its roots only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races...

This is where we are right now. its a racial stalemate that we've been stuck in for years.... but I have asserted a firm conviction..that working together we can move beyond some some of our racial wounds. In fact, we have no choice, no chioice if we are to continute on the path of a more perfect union. For the African American community that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victems of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice, in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances, for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs to larger aspirations of all Americans. The white woman struggling to break the class ceiling, the white man who has been laid off, to the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means also taking full responsibility for our own lives, by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair and cynicism. They must always believe that they can write their own destiny..."


[after the fact update and descent into pundit-land: It seems to me the media has missed the strongest point about Obama's race speech: its sheer honesty about what black and white people sometimes think about each other (often even with the understanding that we shouldn't think that way). Perhaps it's simply that the talking heads don't want to talk about the real issue, race in America, versus Obama's-pastor-said-what...My two cents: watch the speech in its entirety, yourself]

M & Ms

Me: "Mom, would you like some yogurt for lunch."

My grandmother: "Maybe later. Right now I'm eating M&Ms."

Humor break

At stuffwhitepeoplelike...

The Clinton politics as usual

"The Clintons are comfortable with this polarisation. They need it. Even when running against a fellow Democrat, they instinctively reach for it. Last week, in response to the Obama camp’s request that they release their tax returns, Clinton’s spokesman called Obama a new Ken Starr. For the Clintons, all Democrats who oppose them are . . . Republicans. And all Republicans are evil.
And evil means that anything the Clintons do in self-defence is excusable – even playing the race card, and the Muslim card, and the gender card, and every sleazy gambit that the politics of fear can come up with. This is how they have arrested the Obama juggernaut. It’s the only game they know how to play." Here.

Mrs. Clinton, exactly what foreign policy experience of yours are you talking about?

The original article in the Chicago Tribune. Sullivan's take.
"Pressed in a CNN interview this week for specific examples of foreign policy experience that has prepared her for an international crisis, Clinton claimed that she "helped to bring peace" to Northern Ireland and negotiated with Macedonia to open up its border to refugees from Kosovo."
....But....read on.

Here is what David Trimble, the former First Minister of Northern Ireland had to say about it: "...being a cheerleader for something is slightly different than being a principle player."

And...while I'm getting angry...(and damn Andrew Sullivan for pointing this out) Clinton talks about being vetted. But where are the Clintons' tax returns and a complete list of donors to Bill's various causes? I'm afraid I'm beginning to buy into the view that the Clintons care more about themselves than about their party...it was looking that way in general, and then Clinton started singing McCain's praises over Obama (sounds a little like, if I can't be the nominee, then I'll take you down with me) and her campaign compared Obama to Ken Star. Really, where does she come up with this? And uh, yeah, I stand by everything I previously said about Clinton representing politics as usual.

[The one bit of optimism: super delegates realize that Clinton's negativity is damaging to the party and throw their support behind Obama to seal the deal and shut her down.]

[Update March 22; Hillary March 17, 2008: "I remember landing under sniper fire ... we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles." Again, tip to Sullivan.]

[Update March 14; And with respect to SCHIP, the Boston Globe reports that Clinton doesn't really deserve credit for that either, here.]

Pocket computing

...down the road Apple's announcement yesterday of the software development kit for the iphone/ipod touch interface may prove an even bigger deal than the initial announcement of the iphone. This was a huge step forward for palm sized computing.

$ 3,000,000,000,000

The cost of the war in Iraq (3 trillion) by a Nobel Prize winning economist.

Number 4

61,655 passing yards, 442 touchdowns, 160 regular season victories, 3 MVPs, 17 seasons. Favre retires.

These are not "just words"...this is action by speech

While Hillary takes up the Karl Rove politics of fear, Obama admits to occasional homophobia amongst blacks and addresses it directly. This is a perfect example of words that are so much more than "just words." Imagine another candidate going to a constituency and trying to get their votes by challenging them rather than appealing to their base, rather than handing out more platitudes. It doesn't happen.

An hour and a half with Barack Obama.

Marc Andreessen is one of Netscape's co-founders and he recently wrote about an hour and a half that he had in early 2007 with Barack Obama, here (tip to Sullivan). "With most politicians, their curiosity ends once they find out how much money you can raise for them. Not so with Senator Obama -- this is a normal guy....But it's also apparent when you interact with him that you're dealing with one of the intellectually smartest national politicians in recent times...Put the primary campaign speeches aside; take a look at his policy positions on any number of issues and what strikes you is how reasonable, moderate, and thoughtful they are...He's a post-Boomer." You should also read his description of Obama's answers to his "experience" and "foreign policy" questions.

I've never watched American Idol but this was really good:

Here. If that link gets taken down I think a search for "David Archuleta Imagine American Idol Youtube" will find something.

I didn't expect to quote the Wall Street Journal in the primary season, but here it is:

"The assumption behind much of this criticism is that because Mr. Obama gives a good speech he cannot do substance. This is wrong. Mr. Obama has done well in most of the Democratic debates because he has consistently shown himself able to think on his feet. Even on health care, a complicated national issue that should be Mrs. Clinton's strength, Mr. Obama has regularly fought her to a draw by displaying a grasp of the details that rivals hers, and talking about it in ways Americans can understand.

In Iowa, long before the race became the national campaign it is today, Mr. Obama spent much of his time at town halls in which he took questions from the audience. His answers in such settings were often as good or better than the rhetoric in his stump speech, and usually more substantive. He spoke about issues like immigration and national service in a thoughtful manner -- not wonky, not pedantic, but in a way that suggested he'd spent some time thinking about them before."

From this article in the Wall Street Journal that warns Republicans against making the same mistake Clinton has made: she never took him seriously. She assumed eloquence meant absence.

Recipes

I posted some of the recipes from Christmas here. Recipes included: enchilada casserole, tamale pie, and dutch baby among other things that caught my eye in peoples' recipe collections. Hopefully more to come. This link is also in the links sidebar.

Obama and the power of hope

From Peter Drier and the Nation, here.
"A onetime organizer himself, Obama knows that, if elected, his ability to reform healthcare, improve labor laws, tackle global warming and restore job security and living wages will depend, in large measure, on whether he can use his bully pulpit to mobilize public opinion and encourage Americans to battle powerful corporate interests and members of Congress who resist change."

...and including this from Obama:
"Nothing in this country worthwhile has ever happened except when somebody somewhere was willing to hope."

The Los Angeles Times for Barack Obama

"Clinton would be a valuable and competent executive, but Obama matches her in substance and adds something that the nation has been missing far too long -- a sense of aspiration."

Here.