I Call Bullshit

"Sometimes I sing and dance around the house in my underwear. Doesn't make me Madonna. Never will."

Joan Cusack as Cynthia in Working Girl

"I think it's imperative that each of us be able to demonstrate we can cross the commander-in-chief threshold," the New York senator told reporters crowded into an infant's bedroom-sized hotel conference room in Washington.

"I believe that I've done that. Certainly, Sen. McCain has done that and you'll have to ask Sen. Obama with respect to his candidacy," she said.

This is the kind of thing that makes me go ballistic. I'm a unity Democrat. I believe either of the Democratic candidates will make a fine President. I support Obama over Clinton because she voted for the war, and he spoke out against that foreign policy mistake. I have tried SO HARD not to criticize Hillary, not to demonize her, not to tear her down, because she may be the party's nominee, and I'm a good Democrat. I want the Democrats to win, not the Republicans.

Now Hillary is saying not only that Obama is not qualified to be commander-in-chief, but that the Republican candidate, McCain, IS qualified. [Based on what? Five years as a prisoner of war? Four years in the House? Twenty-two years in the Senate?] What party is she working for here? Whose side is she on?

Let's face it, the three candidates for President are all Senators. None of them has any executive experience. Is Hillary just saying she and McCain are older than Obama? Or is she trying to claim that somehow sleeping in the same bed with the President gives her executive experience? Here's how the NYTimes evaluated that claim:

[D]uring those two terms in the White House, Mrs. Clinton did not hold a security clearance. She did not attend National Security Council meetings. She was not given a copy of the president’s daily intelligence briefing. She did not assert herself on the crises in Somalia, Haiti and Rwanda.

And during one of President Bill Clinton’s major tests on terrorism, whether to bomb Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998, Mrs. Clinton was barely speaking to her husband, let alone advising him, as the Lewinsky scandal sizzled.

In seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, Mrs. Clinton lays claim to two traits nearly every day: strength and experience. But as the junior senator from New York, she has few significant legislative accomplishments to her name. She has cast herself, instead, as a first lady like no other: a full partner to her husband in his administration, and, she says, all the stronger and more experienced for her “eight years with a front-row seat on history.”

I've had front row seats to Celtics games. Doesn't make me Larry Bird. Never will. I've had front row seats for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Doesn't make me Seiji Ozawa. Never will.

And I know that scorched earth tactics leave nothing but burned ashes behind.

My Congressman, Jim McGovern, is a Hillary supporter. I'm sending him an email reminding him that Clinton is running to win the Democratic nomination. Tearing down Obama and praising McCain to the skies is not the way to go.

John McCain Can't Quit John Hagee

Watch this video. John Hagee is NUTS, and McCain not only accepted his endorsement, he solicited it and brags about it.



from Talking Points Memo

Indefensible

Read this post from dailykos; no way was the Obama darker ad by the Clinton campaign an accident. Shame. Clinton should withdraw the ad and apologize.

McSame As Bush

hat tip to TPM Election Central

Interesting

Rather than a brokered convention, an Obama-Clinton (or Clinton-Obama) ticket?

Craig Crawford, HuffPo: Only a Dream Ticket Prevents Democratic Nightmare

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama might be stuck with each other – not just for the long haul to the Democratic nominating convention, but well beyond. They might have to run together, whatever the order and whether they like it or not.

Bush To Endorse McCain Today

That's the best news of the day for this Obama supporter.

Let's hope we get a few good pictures to reinforce the truth:

McCain = 4 more years of Bush.

Clinton Takes Ohio

US Democratic presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) smiles during a campaign rally in St. Clairsville, Ohio February 27, 2008. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton (UNITED STATES) US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN 2008
(USA)
TIME: Clinton Wins Ohio

Just an excuse to post this hilarious photograph. Where were her advance people? Didn't they think, avoid the photo with the devil mascot?

One other even funnier photograph, also from the Clinton campaign:



LATImes Top of The Ticket Blog: Hillary Clinton puts the media in its place -- the men's room

Yeah, she put the media in the bathroom next to the urinals. Where they belong. Way to go, Hillary.

Hillary on Jon Stewart

Hillary Clinton on the Daily Show last night (parts 1 & 2)

A Few Fine Links

flickr: Library of Congress photostream
The WaPo says they were just kidding about that whole dumb women thing. So, they think it's OK to joke about sexist stereotypes, and they really think we are dumb enough to accept that lame excuse. Laura Rosen has excellent coverage of the issue at War and Piece.

Vanity Fair reports that George Bush, Master of Disaster, royally fucked up the Gaza/Hamas/Fatah/Israel relationship (which was bad enough to begin with) with a disastrous intervention into Palestinian politics. If you don't have time to read the whole article, here's a summary by Ron Beasley of Middle Earth Journal:

* The administration demanded that elections be held in Palestine, the Democracy thing you know.
* Hamas won 56 percent of the seats in the Legislative Council which took everyone in the administration by surprise. They must not have been listening to Rumsfeld when he said Democracy is messy.
* The Bush administration told the Abbas to disolve the recently elected government and declare Marshall law.
* They then armed his party, Fatah.
* When word of this leaked out the result was a civil war which Hamas won.
* Hamas confiscated most of the US supplied weapons are are now using them to shoot at Israelis.

Troutnut at dailykos catches Hillary Clinton's campaign darkening Obama's skintone in her ads. Shades of the Time magazine OJ Simpson cover.

Did you ever buy that Airborne stuff that is supposed to keep you from getting sick on planes? Turns out they made up the supposed scientific research they cited. There's a $23 million settlement in a class-action lawsuit (they must have sold a LOT of those pills, no?) and The Consumerist has the links where you can file for your refund. This is the kind of case tort reformers want to eliminate.

A little parody site: John McCain Is Our Jalopy. Just keep hitting refresh to see the messages change.

Climate Progress points out the "brutal drought" in Australia and predicts that this is what the American Southwest will be like in 2050.

Charlotte Allen and the Washington Post: Dumb, and Dumber!

Author Dumb (from the Dallas Morning News)
Newspaper Dumber!
Yesterday the Washington Post published an editorial by conservative writer Charlotte Allen, entitled "We Scream, We Swoon. How Dumb Can We Get?" (I'm not linking that piece of shit. Go to the other links in this post, from the excellent feminist website, Feministing.) On the online edition of the post, the article was front-paged with this teaser headline: "Women Aren't Very Bright".

After a torrent of protest, they changed the teaser headline to: "Why Do Women Act So Dumb?"

The article is pure conservative crap. The woman even calls herself a dummy in it, and extrapolates from anecdotal evidence that all women are dumb. Sad. But why is this getting printed on the editorial page of a major newspaper? Do they take us for fools? I guess they do. I'm not dumb. I wouldn't subscribe to the Washington Post if they paid me to. No money for Fred Hiatt's right-wing editorial page. Let Novak and Krauthammer eat dirt.

I posted a comment on the article quoting the John Lennon song, "Woman is the N***er of the World", but they deleted it. So: It's OK to call women dumb, but not to use the epithet nigger to make a point, even if you are commenting on an article that reveals prejudice and stereotyping.

A few months ago the ombudsman for the Post wrote wondering why young female readership of the Post was down (hat tip, Atrios). I can't imagine, can you?

Imagine if the Post had published such an article about other groups? Why are Blacks So Dumb? Why Are Jews So Dumb? Why Are Catholics So Dumb? Why Are Handicapped People So Dumb? Why Are Old People So Dumb?

Why is the Washington Post so dumb?

Better

The New York Times could take a lesson from their West Coast namesake on obituary writing. No equivocations, no bows to critics, no mining trivial events from her personal life.

LATimes: Barbara Seaman, 72; author sparked modern women's health movement

By Valerie J. Nelson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 2, 2008
Barbara Seaman, a writer and health activist whose groundbreaking 1969 book that warned against the dangers of the birth control pill is widely credited with launching the modern women's health movement, has died. She was 72.

Seaman died of lung cancer Wednesday at her New York City home, said her son, Noah Seaman.

In her first book, "The Doctors' Case Against the Pill," Seaman exposed the serious and little-known side effects of the high-estrogen pill prescribed at the time. Women weren't warned that the pill could cause heart attacks, strokes, depression and a host of other ills.

Her investigative work prompted Senate hearings in 1970 that led to a warning label on the drug and the mandatory inclusion of patient-information inserts.

When women who had been harmed by the pill were barred from testifying at the hearings, they fought back by constantly interrupting, calling out questions such as "Why isn't there a pill for men?" and "Why are 10 million women being used as guinea pigs?" Seaman wrote 30 years later in the New York Times.

Those acts of "feminist disobedience," as Seaman called them, are often portrayed as ground zero of the women's health movement.

Judy Norsigian, an author of the pioneering women's health book "Our Bodies, Ourselves" (1973), told the Los Angeles Times last week that the protests were "the beginning of women's voices being heard in women's health."

"It was an extraordinary moment, and Barbara was responsible for getting that movement off the ground," Norsigian said.

With four other women in 1975, Seaman founded the National Women's Health Network, an advocacy group based in Washington, D.C.

According to Cynthia A. Pearson, the network's executive director, "the kind of journalism that Barbara started doing back in the 1960s . . . affected most of the women in this country. It led to more women in medical school, more written information in patient's hands, the breaking down of rules against dads in the delivery room. It was profound."

Carol Downer, who co-founded the Los Angeles Feminist Women's Health Center in 1971, said Seaman's high-profile support was invaluable.

"We were very grass-roots and she took to us and smoothed the path for us over the years," Downer said. "She was just a hub of the women's health movement. She brought the best out in all of us, and she had an impact on women's health around the world."

The 1957 birth of Seaman's first child greatly influenced her career path. When she told her obstetrician that she planned to breast feed, he responded that she "didn't have the right personality for it, too educated," she wrote in a statement for the Jewish Women's Archive.

Her doctor assumed that she would follow his advice and prescribed a laxative that she inadvertently passed on to her son through her breast milk. He nearly died.

"He recovered, but in one sense I did not, for I would never again trust a doctor blindly," Seaman wrote in her 2003 book "The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women: Exploding the Estrogen Myth."

By the early 1960s, she was a health columnist for such magazines as Brides and Ladies' Home Journal. The first oral contraceptives were on the market, and Seaman was inundated with questions from readers who were experiencing distressing side effects. Her answers formed the beginning of her book and helped push for lower-estrogen versions of the pill that later became available.

"I just started out to try and give women plain facts that would help them to make their own decisions and not have to rely on authority figures," Seaman said in a 2003 interview with Women's eNews. "I didn't start out to be a muckraker."

Her books included "Free and Female" (1972), which addressed women's sexuality; "Women and the Crisis in Sex Hormones" (1977), written with her second husband, psychiatrist Gideon Seaman; and "The No-Nonsense Guide to Menopause," co-written with Laura Eldridge, to be published later this year.

One writing project stood apart, a 1987 biography of "Valley of the Dolls" author Jacqueline Susann called "Lovely Me." Seaman said she was drawn to her subject because she saw Susann as an advocate for women's rights who operated within the prism of popular culture.

Seaman was born Sept. 11, 1935, in New York City, the eldest of three daughters of Henry and Sophie Rosner.

She credited her passion for social justice to her father, a public welfare administrator, and her affinity for writing to her mother, a high school English teacher.

At Ohio's Oberlin College, Seaman received a bachelor's degree in history in 1956. While completing a fellowship in advanced science writing at Columbia University in 1968, she started working on her birth-control book.

Seaman was married and divorced three times.

In addition to her son, she is survived by two daughters, Elana Seaman and Shira Seaman; sisters Jeri Drucker and Elaine Rosner-Jeria; and four grandchildren.

valerie.nelson@latimes.com

Work Off Some Aggression

with this silly website; not once, not twice, but three times:

Punch Chimpee Here

hat tip to user Asinus Asinum Fricat at dailykos.

20 Years Before the Shit Hits the Fan

wikipedia: The Scream, Edvard Munch (1893)
This is a depressing view from climate scientist (and doomsdayer) James Lovelock:

The Guardian (uk):
'Enjoy life while you can'
Climate science maverick James Lovelock believes catastrophe is inevitable, carbon offsetting is a joke and ethical living a scam. So what would he do?

Lovelock believes global warming is now irreversible, and that nothing can prevent large parts of the planet becoming too hot to inhabit, or sinking underwater, resulting in mass migration, famine and epidemics. Britain is going to become a lifeboat for refugees from mainland Europe, so instead of wasting our time on wind turbines we need to start planning how to survive. To Lovelock, the logic is clear. The sustainability brigade are insane to think we can save ourselves by going back to nature; our only chance of survival will come not from less technology, but more.

Nuclear power, he argues, can solve our energy problem - the bigger challenge will be food. "Maybe they'll synthesise food. I don't know. Synthesising food is not some mad visionary idea; you can buy it in Tesco's, in the form of Quorn. It's not that good, but people buy it. You can live on it." But he fears we won't invent the necessary technologies in time, and expects "about 80%" of the world's population to be wiped out by 2100. Prophets have been foretelling Armageddon since time began, he says. "But this is the real thing."

[]

What would Lovelock do now, I ask, if he were me? He smiles and says: "There have been seven disasters since humans came on the earth, very similar to the one that's just about to happen. I think these events keep separating the wheat from the chaff. And eventually we'll have a human on the planet that really does understand it and can live with it properly. That's the source of my optimism."

What would Lovelock do now, I ask, if he were me? He smiles and says: "Enjoy life while you can. Because if you're lucky it's going to be 20 years before it hits the fan."

Answered Prayers

There are more tears shed over answered prayers than over unanswered prayers.

St. Theresa of Jesus


Well, I got my New York Times obituary of Barbara Seaman. I don't like it. It's pretty nasty, and they go out of their way to acknowledge her critics.

NYTImes: Barbara Seaman, 72, Dies; Cited Risks of the Pill

There's more criticism of Barbara Seaman in one page than is contained in all three pages of the obituary for the loathesome William F. Buckley, which is headlined: "He elevated conservatism to the center of American political discourse." Elevated? He wanted people with AIDS to be tattooed. Please. Multisyllabic does not equal smart or revolutionary, both of which are apt descriptions for Barbara Seaman.

Here are the passages in the Times obituary I object to; my comments are italicized.

Ms. Seaman’s first book, “The Doctors’ Case Against the Pill” (P. H. Wyden), was considered groundbreaking when it was published in 1969. [emphasis added]

It wasn't just "considered" groundbreaking; it WAS groundbreaking.

Though the publication of “The Doctors’ Case Against the Pill” made Ms. Seaman an enduring heroine of the women’s movement, her work did not find favor everywhere. As some reviewers saw it, Ms. Seaman’s passionate polemic sometimes got the better of scientific argument.

Writing in The Washington Post in 2003, Liza Mundy reviewed “The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed on Women,” about the potential risks of hormone-replacement therapy:

“Seaman is a conspiracy theorist by temperament and training,” Ms. Mundy wrote. “In her presentation, every drug company is working against the interests of its patients, and every journalist who fails to question this or that bad study has probably been bought off; she uses the phrase ‘organized medicine’ in what seems a direct echo of ‘organized crime.’ ”

While it may be true that Ms. Mundy wrote that, it is irrelevant. As usual, Barbara Seaman was right. Drug companies are not nonprofits; they are concerned with sales and spreadsheets, not with health. Many doctors today are glorified pill-pushers who do what they have to do to get paid by insurance companies. The press HAS been bought off; the giant media conglomerates are concerned with their bottom lines, and one of their greatest advertisers is the pharmaceutical industry. That's why Barbara Seaman kept getting fired from magazines for speaking the truth.

The truth about HRT, the subject of Seaman's book in Mundy's review, is that HRT raises the incidence of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and dementia in women taking this dangerous cocktail. The Times obituary does not address the health risks of HRT or the fact that research has borne out Ms. Seaman's criticisms of HRT.

In the 1990s, Ms. Seaman also began to speak out publicly against domestic violence, from which she said she had suffered during her marriage to Mr. Forman. Though she did not identify Mr. Forman by name in the news media, court records show that in 1988 he was arrested and charged with assault after Ms. Seaman accused him of punching her in the face. The criminal case against Mr. Forman was later thrown out, Dudley Gaffin, his lawyer at the time, said in a telephone interview on Thursday.

Reached by telephone on Thursday, Mr. Forman denied having assaulted Ms. Seaman, calling the accusation of assault “a divorce tactic” on her part.

What could better demonstrate society's attitude towards domestic violence than the New York Times seeking out the batterer for a denial quote? Because even in death, Barbara Seaman, feminist pioneer, cannot be believed. And you can't get a fresh quote from her, now can you. But you can smear her a little in her own obituary. This is really disgusting.

Final thought: The obituary from the site Dog Flu Diet & Diseases is better.

Dog Flu Diet & Diseases: Female Reproductive Health Advocate Dies At 72

Wall St. Journal: REMEMBRANCES
Barbara Seaman (1935 – 2008)
Advocate for Women's Health Care, She Agitated to Make the Pill Safer

The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, OH): Barbara Seaman, Oberlin grad, women's health pioneer

Classic SPAM

hat tip to Shakesville

War of Words

Yesterday Hillary Clinton's campaign released this ad:



Text:

It's 3 a.m., and your children are safe and asleep, But there's a phone in the White House, and it's ringing — something's happening in the world. Your vote will decide who answers that call.

Whether it’s someone who already knows the world’s leaders, knows the military, someone tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world. It’s 3 AM and your children are safe and asleep. Who do you want answering the phone?

Barack Obama's campaign responded with this ad just a few hours later:



Text (my transcription):

It's 3 a.m., and your children are safe and asleep, But there's a phone ringing in the White House. Something's happening in the world.

When that call gets answered, shouldn't the President be the one, the only one, who had judgment and courage to oppose the Iraq War from the start? Who understood the real threat to America was Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, not Iraq? Who led the effort to secure loose nuclear weapons around the globe? In a dangerous world, it's judgment that matters.

I'm an Obamite, for sure, but I have to give that exchange to him on points. As someone said on dailykos, he "Floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee." If John Kerry had been this agile in parrying terror fearmongering, he'd be President today.

And yes, Clinton's ad is straight out of the Republican playbook. I mean straight out, as in she apparently lifted her ad concept from an ad submitted by a McCain supporter to McCain's website in January:



Or as one wag put it, "Fear you can Xerox".

Here's what Bill Clinton had to say about using fear to get votes, in 2004:

Teddy Sheringham to Announce Retirement

Coach Mom & I were fortunate to see him play for West Ham in October of 2006, and he scored -- at the age of 40! It was a thrill to see the old lion looking young again. West Ham won 2-1 and the crowd jubilantly chanted "There's only one Alan Pardew" at the end of the game; the manager was fired six weeks later. It was Sheringham's final season in the English Premier League. This year he's been riding the pine at Colchester in the Championship and I guess he's had enough. Farewell, happy warrior.

Times (uk): Teddy Sheringham reaches end of the road - but what a ride
Tony Cascarino raises a glass to his former Millwall teammate, who is in his final season at Colchester United

One of the longest and most spectacular careers in the modern era will come to a close in May. Teddy Sheringham will announce tomorrow that he will retire at the end of the season. A playing life that began in 1982 when he was signed by Millwall as an apprentice will finish on May 4 when Colchester United face Scunthorpe United at Glandford Park — when he will be aged 42 years and one month.

The announcement will come on Sky Sports’ Goals on Sunday programme and Teddy will deserve all the plaudits he’s going to get because he has been one of the finest forwards in decades. You have only to look at his 51 England caps and the managers who have signed him and played him for proof of his excellence — Brian Clough, Terry Venables and Sir Alex Ferguson, to name a few.

They appreciated Teddy’s value and what he could bring to a game. He’s had that rare combination of intense hunger and calm intelligence. In an era when pace is so crucial up front, he survived and flourished even though he was never quick. If he had been blessed with speed, he would have been as good as Marco van Basten because he has so many natural gifts.

wikipedia: Teddy Sheringham

Edward Paul 'Teddy' Sheringham MBE (born 2 April 1966 in Highams Park, London) is a veteran English professional footballer currently playing for Colchester United and the father of footballer Charlie Sheringham. Sheringham plays as a striker, and has had a successful career at club level, winning almost every domestic honour available with his clubs, most notably the treble with Manchester United. Sheringham has also represented England at international level. He was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in June 2007.[1]

Another Obama Video by Will.i.am

RIP Barbara Seaman (Updated)

Power Surge: Interview with Barbara Seaman
Exploding The Estrogen Myth

Barbara Seaman's book The Doctor's Case Against the Pill, and her later book about hormone replacement therapy, Women and the Crisis in Sex Hormones, her later books about DES, Women and the Crisis in Sex Hormones, and hormone replacement therapy, The Menopause Industry: How the Medical Establishment Exploits Women, were seminal feminist tracts. My copies were dog-eared because I was always lending them to friends who were considering the pill or HRT. She was right on about both: huge experiments by the male medical community, where healthy women were given untested and experimental drugs for perfectly natural conditions that were not illnesses. A woman who needs birth control is not sick. A woman experiencing the symptoms of menopause is not "ill"; she is experiencing part of life.

Barbara Seaman was fired from almost every magazine she ever wrote for, when the pharmaceutical companies threatened to pull advertising if her work was published. She was a real feminist pioneer. Not surprisingly, the corporate media is ignoring the death of this influential feminist. As of the time of the post, only 8 media outlets have published the AP an obituary of Seaman.

She will be missed.

HuffPo: Leora Tanenbaum
Your Pill is Safer Because of Her

HuffPo: Jennifer Baumgardner
Remembering Barbara Seaman

TPM Cafe: Let us remember Barbara Seaman, crusading pioneer of the women's health movement

Chesler Chronicles: An Elegy For My Friend "Babz," aka Barbara Seaman (1935-2008) (a tribute by another feminist writer, Phyllis Chesler, the author of Women and Madness)

Newsday: Barbara Seaman, women's health advocate, dead at 72

Our Bodies, Ourselves: Remembering Barbara Seaman

Women'sSpace: “Dear Injurious Physician” — In Memorium: Barbara Seaman, Sept. 11, 1935-Feb. 27, 2008

UPDATE: As of 10:00 a.m. on Friday, only two additional corporate media outlets have published an obituary of Barbara Seaman: the Washington Post (and not just the AP obit, they wrote their own) and the Philadelphia Daily News. Is the corporate media ignoring the death of this feminist pioneer to keep their pharmaceutical advertisers happy? I emailed the NYTimes last night lamenting their lack of an obit, and got a form email in response, but neither the Times, the Boston Globe, nor the LATimes reports on Seaman's death today. Shame.

UPDATE 2: Updated to correct my mistake in confusing Women and the Crisis in Sex Hormones with The Menopause Industry: How the Medical Establishment Exploits Women.

Chief Justice Roberts Ready To Rule For Exxon

Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Victim
Alaska. Dead Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) dead in the snow died of toxic pollution from the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Not only have 20% of the people who sued Exxon for the Valdez oil spill 19 years ago died in the meantime, it looks like our Rethug-dominated Supreme Court will rule against the Alaskans. Because what can what one of the richest corporations in the world do to prevent oil spills? (Double-hulled ships, anyone?) The lawyer who argued the case before the Court had some ideas, but they didn't go over well:

Chief Justice John Roberts was pained.

Exxon Mobil, the giant oil corporation appearing before the Supreme Court yesterday, had earned a profit of nearly $40 billion in 2006, the largest ever reported by a U.S. company -- but that's not what bothered Roberts. What bothered the chief justice was that Exxon was being ordered to pay $2.5 billion -- roughly three weeks' worth of profits -- for destroying a long swath of the Alaska coastline in the largest oil spill in American history.

"So what can a corporation do to protect itself against punitive-damages awards such as this?" Roberts asked in court.

The lawyer arguing for the Alaska fishermen affected by the spill, Jeffrey Fisher, had an idea. "Well," he said, "it can hire fit and competent people."

The rare sound of laughter rippled through the august chamber. The chief justice did not look amused.

Moral of this story: Not only do we need more Democrats, we need better Democrats. Here are the 22 supposed "Democrats" who voted to put the archconservative Roberts on the Court for the rest of my life:

* Max Baucus (D - MT)
* Jeff Bingaman (D - NM)
* Robert Byrd (D - WV)
* Thomas Carper (D - DE)
* Kent Conrad (D - ND)
* Christopher Dodd (D - CT)
* Byron Dorgan (D - ND)
* Russell Feingold (D - WI)
* Tim Johnson (D - SD)
* Herb Kohl (D - WI)
* Mary Landrieu (D - LA)
* Patrick Leahy (D - VT)
* Carl Levin (D - MI)
* Joseph Lieberman (D - CT)
* Blanche Lincoln (D - AR)
* Patty Murray (D - WA)
* Bill Nelson (D - FL)
* Ben Nelson (D - NE)
* Mark Pryor (D - AR)
* Jay Rockefeller (D - WV)
* Ken Salazar (D - CO)
* Ron Wyden (D - OR)

Thanks a lot, DINOs. I'll give money to any progressive who challenges any of you.

Reject and Denounce

I watched the Democratic debate on MSNBC in fits and starts this week, but I missed the part where Tim Russert asked Obama to disavow Louis Farrakhan. (Russert and Williams are so shallow and empty, and there was women's basketball on. Does Williams think speaking ponderously makes him sound smart? I still know he listens to Rush Limbaugh and doesn't think Limbaugh gets the credit he deserves -- yes, he said this -- so I know he's a moron.) The video of the Farrakhan exchange, from TPM, is above.

Obama has no relationship with Farrakhan. It was a complete and total Pumpkinhead bullshit gotcha moment. But Russert apparently thinks this is a legitimate questioning device. So let the denouncing and rejecting begin! Let's start with Pumpkinhead. He never denounced and rejected his good pal Don Imus when he used hateful racist and sexist language about the Rutgers women's basketball team. Russert: When are you going to disavow the hateful statements of Don Imus?

Today John McCain was endorsed by a hate-spewing preacher, John Hagee. And McCain embraces this endorsement. Shouldn't he have to denounce and reject Hagee who hates Jews, Muslims, Catholics, gays, women, Hurricane Katrina victims, well, pretty much anyone who isn't in his church. John McCain: When are you going to disavow the hateful statements of John Hagee?

As others have said, it's foolish for our political press to be making mountains of such shit and ignoring the issues, but if that's what they're going to do, could they at least do it to both parties?

Attytood: Questions for Tim Russert: When will you denounce your supporter Don Imus?

Down With Tyranny: SO WHEN WILL TIM RUSSERT DEMAND THAT HIS OLD PAL McCAIN DISAVOW THE ENDORSEMENT HE GOT YESTERDAY FROM BIGOTED PSYCHOPATH JOHN HAGEE?

MediaMatters: Will MSNBC devote as much coverage to McCain's embrace of Hagee's support as it did to Obama's rejection of Farrakhan?

Glenn Greenwald: Some hateful, radical ministers -- white evangelicals -- are acceptable

Glenn Greenwald: Interview with Bill Donohue: Catholic League denounces McCain

Maya Moore Could Be the Best Ever

So good that even the New York Times, which generally ignores women's sports, writes about her:

NYTimes: In Freshman Season, Moore Shows UConn What May Come

Music to Drive You Crazy

Mother Jones: The Torture Playlist

NEWS: Music has been used in American military prisons and on bases to induce sleep deprivation, "prolong capture shock," disorient detainees during interrogations—and also drown out screams. Based on a leaked interrogation log, news reports, and the accounts of soldiers and detainees, here are some of the songs that guards and interrogators chose.

I actually like three of the songs:

Don MacLean, American Pie

Bruce Springsteen, Born in the U.S.A.

David Gray, Babylon

You can listen to all 20 songs at the Mother Jones link. For all young parents, yes, the Barney theme song made the list.

Bush's Bubble

Smirky just answered a question in his press conference by saying that he hasn't heard the reports that gasoline prices will be $4.00 a gallon this summer.

That didn't make the daily brief? Mr. Oilman didn't hear about $4 gas? He is completely out of touch.

I immediately thought of his father, flummoxed by the grocery scanner in 1992. They don't live in the real world with the rest of us.

January 20, 2009 can't come soon enough.

Take Your Own Grocery Bag, Save a Whale

Sickening sight: Wildlife experts examine the dead whale which washed ashore on the Isle of Mull
DailyMail (uk): Banish the bags: This whale washed up on a British beach. In its stomach....the remains of 23 plastic bags

Democrats Close to Taking NYS Senate

News10Now: Aubertine sworn in Wednesday.
Thanks to a dairy farmer! Darrel Aubertine is anti-choice, but for a seat that hasn't been held by a Democrat since 1880, we'll take him. And anything to remove power from the loathesome Joe Bruno.

Aubertine had some awesome ads. Watch them:

A River Runs Through It

"I'm Running For State Senate"

Darrel Aubertine - One Of Us, For A Change

Aubertine for State Senate


Albany Times-Union: Aubertine upsets Barclay in Senate special election
Aubertine's victory by more than 2,000 votes moves Democrats closer to control of Senate

Why Colleges Are Offering Free Tuition

Colleges don't want to spend their huge endowments. To guard their coffers, they offer free tuition to a tiny percentage of applicants: families making less than $60,000 per year. It's not altruism. They have built their huge reserves by raising tuition every year, then taking all the state and federal loan and grant money and putting it in their private bank accounts. It's all about the Benjamins, as usual.

Boston Globe: Colleges guard soaring endowments
Many resist congressional pressure to curb tuition hikes, offer more aid

Under growing pressure from Congress, the country's wealthiest colleges and universities are sharply resisting calls to spend more of their soaring endowments to expand financial aid and curb tuition hikes that critics say are putting college beyond the reach of ordinary families.

The pattern of deep-pocketed universities regularly raising tuition while amassing fast-growing fortunes has drawn unusual scrutiny from government leaders and higher education advocates over the past few months. They say elite colleges are hoarding wealth that could help open their doors to more poor and working-class families.

In Massachusetts, 13 institutions boast endowments of more than $500 million. The Boston area's eight wealthiest schools hold a combined fortune approaching $50 billion.

Through lobbyists and national education associations, colleges are fighting a handful of proposals rippling through Congress. Among the most controversial ideas: a requirement that schools spend 5 percent of their endowments each year to help defray costs for students and families.

[]

...76 institutions surpass[] the $1 billion mark, up from 39 in 2003.

Nowhere are colleges amassing more wealth than in the Boston area. Harvard University's $34 billion endowment is bigger than the gross domestic product of Montana. MIT's $10 billion cache could buy Facebook. Together, Boston College and Boston University could bankroll the entire city budget, with $500 million to spare.

Another Reason to Prefer Larry Bird's Red Auerbach's Celtics

No fucking cheerleaders.

Boston Globe: Go-go dancing all over Red's grave

Red Auerbach, the iconic coach and general manager who built 16 Celtics championship teams, was disdainful of cheerleaders, who he feared would distract from the game. The Celtics would have cheerleaders over his dead body, Red said. And so the suits waited. In February 2004, Auerbach told the Globe, "They're just waiting for me to die so they can get cheerleaders." He was right. Two and a half years later, Red was dead, and at the first available opportunity the girls took the court.

[]

As a fairly recent transplant from New York, I'm a little puzzled by all this. I thought that I was moving to the land of stiff collars and self-restraint. No one thinks of Boston as "sexy." Boston is classic. It's distinguished. It's Brooks Brothers and Bloody Marys.

Maybe that's why the Celtics Dancers' erotic interruptions feel so incongruous. And when I glance around at the game, I see plenty of baffled faces. There are suburban dads in attendance with preteen daughters, shrugging helplessly. They seem to be saying, "These aren't your role models!" There are respectable older gentlemen, like my father-in-law, who sinks deeper into his popcorn. Our eyes don't meet. There are also legions of teenage boys, their eyes like saucers, holding up their cellphones to get the perfect soft-porn picture to show off around school. I guess those are the customers the Celtics are hoping to please.

More Delegates for Obama?

Michael Nagle/European Pressphoto Agency

A sign supporting Senator Barack Obama on Primary Day in Harlem. Some districts reported that no one had voted for him.
NYTimes: Unofficial Tallies in City Understated Obama Vote

[A] review by The New York Times of the unofficial results reported on primary night found about 80 election districts among the city’s 6,106 where Mr. Obama supposedly did not receive even one vote, including cases where he ran a respectable race in a nearby district.

Adventures in Customer Service Hell

I have to get on the phone with my internet provider over a problem, and I think I'll just watch this video to pass the time. I wonder what they'll do if I start saying boo boo bah bah. Will the tech in India or Canada even notice?


hat tip to The Consumerist: Small Child Does Accurate Impression Of Father On The Phone With The Cable Company:

My friend, a massage therapist, had this forwarded to him by a client. The kid in the video is her great-nephew. According to my friend, "it's hilarious that the only thing you can clearly make out is him saying "bullshit"".

And Now For Something Completely Different

BBC: German sculptor Stefan Hempel paints wooden Easter bunnies in Stralsund, northern Germany.

Oceans in Peril

National Geographic: No Pristine Oceans Left, New Map Shows
Telegraph (uk): Man's effect on world's oceans revealed

Almost half of the world's oceans have been seriously affected by over-fishing, pollution and climate change, according to a major study of man's impact on marine life.

LATimes: Dead zones off Oregon and Washington likely tied to global warming, study says

Although scientists continue to amass data and tease out the details, all signs in the search for a cause point to stronger winds associated with a warming planet.

Dumb Americans

I want to read this book:

The Age of American Unreason, by Susan Jacoby

Her story of what prompted her to write the book is priceless:

NYTimes: Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?

Ms. Jacoby, [] the author of seven other books, [] was a fellow at the library when she first got the idea for this book back in 2001, on 9/11.

Walking home to her Upper East Side apartment, she said, overwhelmed and confused, she stopped at a bar. As she sipped her bloody mary, she quietly listened to two men, neatly dressed in suits. For a second she thought they were going to compare that day’s horrifying attack to the Japanese bombing in 1941 that blew America into World War II:

“This is just like Pearl Harbor,” one of the men said.

The other asked, “What is Pearl Harbor?”

“That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War,” the first man replied.

At that moment, Ms. Jacoby said, “I decided to write this book.”

Two Good Clemens Reads

Boston Globe:
Former New York Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens (center) gestures as his attorney's [sic] Rusty Hardin (left) and Lanny Breuer (right, standing) try to address members questions during testimony on Capitol Hill.
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Joe Posnanski: My Eight Favorite People in Congress

Hang in there and read the whole thing. His bloghead says "Curiously Long Posts", and he means it.

Gerry Callahan, Boston Herald: Congress sends in clowns
Republicans look like bozos

Oh My

New York Times: Prominent Clinton Backer Says He’ll Vote for Obama

MILWAUKEE – Representative John Lewis, an iconic figure from the Civil Rights era and one of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s most prominent black supporters, said Thursday night that he planned to cast his vote as a superdelegate for Senator Barack Obama in hopes of preventing a fight at the Democratic convention.

“In recent days, there is a sense of movement and a sense of spirit,” said Mr. Lewis, a Georgia Democrat who endorsed Mrs. Clinton last fall. “Something is happening in America and people are prepared and ready to make that great leap.”

Mr. Lewis, an elder statesman of the black civil rights establishment who carries great influence among other members of Congress and in the black community, disclosed his decision in an interview as the Service Employees International Union was on the brink of endorsing Mr. Obama. It also came as fresh signs emerged that Mrs. Clinton’s support was beginning to erode from some African American lawmakers who also serve as superdelegates. Representative David Scott of Georgia, who was among the first to defect, said he would not go against the will of voters in his district who overwhelmingly supported Mr. Obama last week.

To mix a few metaphors here, Clinton's firewall has sprung a big leak.

Red Sox Notes

Boston Herald: Photo by Matt Stone
Josh Beckett not looking like a lean, mean pitching machine that he reportedly is at Spring Training in Florida yesterday.

I always feel like this when I put on my bathing suit on the first beach day of the year.

Spring training has begun! Well, at least pitchers & catchers and a few other early birds (click on this link & watch the video on the right for a hilarious interview with Jonathon Papelbon) have reported. Time to begin reading Joy of Sox and The Soxaholix daily again.

We are having one brutal winter, which I hate, but do you realize that the last terrible winter we had followed our last World Series triumph (2004). So now we know: When the Red Sox win the World Series, we spend the winter digging out. Good trade; let it snow, let snow, let it snow.

Great long piece on Dustin Pedroia from Sunday's Boston Globe.

Clay Buchholtz (Mr. Rookie No-No) spent the offseason working out & putting on 10 much-needed pounds.

Dice-K's got a mullet.

Okajima, on the other hand, tells the media that he's got a new secret pitch. Ooooh!

Didja know that Jacoby Ellsbury is a Mormon? So is Dennis Eckersley. This blogger put both on his her All-Mormon team.

Our happy warrior.Boston Globe:
Papelbon addressed the media, saying, "Just on the way down here, you know, driving and stuff, you think about what happened last year, going out there and doing it again. You turn the radio up loud. You cruise. It's always a fun time of the year for me."
(AP Photo)

I Don't Heart McCain

For many reasons. The #1 reason is his position on reproductive rights. I can't have an rabid anti-choicer appointing the next Supreme Court justice.

Via feministing, here's a summary of the terrible positions McCain has taken on a woman's right to choose:

* Repeatedly voted for (and cosponsored) the Federal Abortion Ban. After the court upheld the ban, he said, "Today's Supreme Court ruling is a victory for those who cherish the sanctity of life and integrity of the judiciary. The ruling ensures that an unacceptable and unjustifiable practice will not be carried out on our innocent children."

* Supported the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, a law that grants separate legal status to an embryo or fetus

* Voted in favor of four anti‐choice U.S. Supreme Court nominees. "I’m proud that we have Justice Alito and Roberts on the United States Supreme Court. I’m very proud to have played a very small role in making that happen." (May 3, 2007 Republican debate)

* Repeatedly voted to deny low‐income women access to abortion care except in cases of rape, incest, or life endangerment

* Voted to permit federally funded Title X family‐planning clinics to decline to counsel women on abortion services

* Voted against lifting the ban that forbids U.S. servicewomen from obtaining abortion services at overseas military hospitals with their own funds

* Voted to require Title X family‐planning clinics to notify a teen’s parent before providing abortion services

* Voted in favor of the Teen Endangerment and Grandmother Incarceration Act

* Voted against the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE)

* Voted to terminate the Title X family‐planning program

* Voted against funding teen‐pregnancy‐prevention programs and ensuring that “abstinence‐only” programs are medically accurate

* Voted to uphold the Global Gag Rule

* Voted for the domestic gag rule, which would have prohibited federally funded family‐planning clinics from providing women with access to full information about their reproductive‐health options

* Voted to de‐fund the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), an organization that provides family‐planning services – not abortion – for the world’s poorest women

* Voted to earmark one‐third of all HIV/AIDS prevention funds for abstinence-only programs

* Voted to take $75 million from the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant to establish a new “abstinence‐only” program

* Voted to impose a federal parental‐consent law on teens seeking birth control. Not abortion. Birth control

* Voted against legislation that would have required insurance coverage of prescription birth control, improved access to emergency contraception, and provided more women with prenatal health care

* Voted to allow medical residency training programs in obstetrics and gynecology to receive federal assistance even if they ignore abortion training requirements

Happy Valentine's Day

From John McCain to his BFF George Bush.

Never let the voters forget their love.

Because if we convince voters that Bush = McCain,

McCain will = toast.

The Verdict is In

Roger Clemens is a liar.

No, you didn't mishear or misremember that. Liar.

MSNBC: Hall of Fame for Clemens? Try Hall of Shame
The longer he talked, the more he looked like a guilty man and a liar

Boston Herald: Roger the Dodger strikes out on stand

Boston Herald: Rocket misfires again
Wiser man would’ve cut losses long ago

Seattle Times: Clemens should try to misremember this day
LATimes: Clemens doesn't come off as a winner

Boston Globe: A strike on Clemens's character

Dallas Morning News: Clemens' credibility takes a crippling hit from shaky testimony

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Clemens the biggest loser of Steroidgate

Lawrence Eagle-Tribune: Who's telling the truth? No question it's McNamee

McCain: Yes to Waterboarding

And Baghdad is very safe.

And they call this guy a maverick.

ThinkProgress: Maverick Fails The Test: McCain Votes Against Waterboarding Ban

'[W]hen you pick on Hillary, you pick on all women.'

Don't you just want to kiss this woman for going off on Tucker Carlson and giving MSNBC hell for their treatment of Hillary?

Anecdotal evidence suggests that MSNBC hosts are already feeling the fallout.

To wit: On Tuesday morning, Tucker Carlson, the host of MSNBC’s talk show Tucker, was standing in line at the Palisades Recreation Center in Washington, D.C., waiting to vote in D.C.’s presidential primary. According to a source with knowledge of the situation, a middle-aged woman, standing in line in front of Mr. Carlson, recognized the on-air anchor and began berating Mr. Carlson about MSNBC’s coverage of Hillary Clinton.

According to the source, the irate Washingtonian told Mr. Carlson something to the effect that “when you pick on Hillary, you pick on all women.”

Later the uncomfortable conversation continued outside the voting hub. When reached on Tuesday afternoon at his MSNBC offices in the District, Mr. Carlson declined to comment.

This would be the same Tucker Carlson who was never disciplined in any way by MSNBC after saying this about Hillary Clinton on air:

"I have often said, when she comes on television, I involuntarily cross my legs."

I hope MSNBC realizes that when Tucker Carlson comes on television, I and many other women (and men) voluntarily change the channel.

Obama: 'Is he tough enough?'

Vanity Fair: Senator Barack Obama (with Lincoln and King [in photos]) in his Capitol Hill office. Photograph by Jonas Karlsson.
Vanity Fair: Raising Obama

Is he tough enough? That’s the question being asked of Barack Obama. To those who have known the candidate since boyhood, it’s not just those “dreams from my father” that make Obama a contender, but also his mother’s daring, his grandmother’s grit, and his own relentless drive.

Vanity Fair Slideshow: The Young Obama

Donna Edwards: A Better Democrat

Last night the voters of Maryland's 4th District had a choice, between their incumbent Blue Dog Democratic congressman Al Wynn and challenger, liberal Donna Edwards. Wynn, during his time in the House

[d]espite representing an overwhelmingly Democratic district, [] voted for the Iraq War, for pro-bank bankruptcy legislation, for massive fossil fuels subsidies, for repealing the estate tax, and for letting the likes of Verizon and Comcast have untrammeled control over the Internet.

The netroots supported Edwards. The establishment, and entrenched interests including many unions, the Democratic party establishment, even NARAL supported Wynn. He had seniority and the money. But Donna Edwards is a better Democrat and a liberal, and her message triumphed last night.

The motto of the netroots is "More Democrats, Better Democrats." That's Donna Edwards. (While this was just the Democratic primary, it is a reliably Democratic district; she'll win in November.)

Steroid Hearings

Droning on in the background of my house.

My take: Roger Clemens is not the smartest person in the room.

Imagine if Congress spent as much time on Bush & the telecoms eviscerating the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution?

Nah.

Precisely

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

One to Watch

USSoccer Teresa Noyola assisted on the final U.S. goal in the U-17 WNT's 4-0 victory over U-18 Surf at the 2006 Women's Nike Friendlies.
© John Todd / isiphotos.com

Remember this name: Teresa Noyola (nickname "T"). She was named the national player of the year as a high school junior (an award that usually goes to a senior.)

She scored yesterday in the US U20 team's 1-0 win over England, their first game under new coach, old USWNT coach Tony DiCicco.

hat tip to USA Women's Soccer

Chesapeake Primary: Early Results

My sister voted for Hillary this morning in Virginia. Here's how she described it:

Just voted....and it was more emotional than I would have guessed, to pull the lever (or in this case touch the screen) next to a woman's name for President of the United States.

MSNBC just called Virginia for Obama.

The good news for Hillary today is the new SurveyUSA poll from Ohio, one of her must-win states (along with Texas), in which she leads Obama 56% to 39%.

So, it looks like Obama will take all three contests today. The fun will come from seeing how many Republican voters stick it to their presumptive nominee, John McCain, by voting for the Squirrel Fryer. Go Squirrel Fryer!

Only the Little People Obey the Laws

President Bush and the telecoms just get Congress to exempt them.

Glenn Greenwald, salon.com: Amnesty Day for Bush and lawbreaking telecoms

Roger Clemens is more likely to get jail time for lying to Congress than President Bush will ever be for his multiple lies and lawbreaking. Disgraceful.

Does Lipitor Turn Women's Brains to Mush?

I have steadfastly refused my doctor's call to go on statin drugs for lowering cholesterol. Along with recent research showing that the drugs may have no effect on cardiac health, now doctors are reporting that the most popular cholesterol-lowering drug, Lipitor, may be causing memory loss in women. Can't find a word? Foggy brain? It may be your Lipitor prescription.

WSJ Online: Can a Drug That Helps Hearts Be Harmful to the Brain?

Cognitive side effects like memory loss and fuzzy thinking aren't listed on the patient information sheet for Lipitor, the popular cholesterol-lowering drug. But some doctors are voicing concerns that in a small portion of patients, statins like Lipitor may be helping hearts but hurting minds.

"This drug makes women stupid," Orli Etingin, vice chairman of medicine at New York Presbyterian Hospital, declared at a recent luncheon discussion sponsored by Project A.L.S. to raise awareness of gender issues and the brain. Dr. Etingin, who is also founder and director of the Iris Cantor Women's Health Center in New York, told of a typical patient in her 40s, unable to concentrate or recall words. Tests found nothing amiss, but when the woman stopped taking Lipitor, the symptoms vanished. When she resumed taking Lipitor, they returned.

"I've seen this in maybe two dozen patients," Dr. Etingin said later, adding that they did better on other statins. "This is just observational, of course. We really need more studies, particularly on cognitive effects and women."

Pfizer Inc.'s Lipitor is the world's best-selling medicine, with revenues of $12.6 billion in 2007. The company says that its safety and efficacy have been demonstrated in more than 400 clinical trials and 145 million patient years of experience, and that the extensive data "do not establish a causal link between Lipitor and memory loss." Pfizer also says it draws conclusions about adverse events from a variety of sources "as opposed to anecdotal inferences by individual providers with a limited data pool."

hat tip to Suburban Guerrilla

The Next Mittwit Move?

Hilarious.

H. D. S. Greenway, Boston Globe: The comeback kid of 2008

John McCain; No You Can't

The parodies, they are a' flowing:

John McCain's Vision

Hilarious. If you haven't watched the Obama "Yes We Can" video yet, you won't realize how hilarious.


hat tip to Big Blue

Robin Morgan's Manifesto for Hillary

Robin Morgan's 1970 classic.

Goodbye To All That (#2) by Robin Morgan

Reportedly Chelsea Clinton has circulated this article to friends and supporters via email. I received it from my Hillary-supporting sister. I feel guilty when I read this article. I'm a good feminist. I should support Hillary. But the article doesn't address my main issue with Hillary: She voted for the war. Yeah, the media sucks. Yeah, she's being treated in a very sexist way. Yeah, Obama is young and less experienced. But with all her experience, she gave George W. Bush the authority to go to war. I can't get over that.

Goodbye to the toxic viciousness . . .

Carl Bernstein's disgust at Hillary’s “thick ankles.” Nixon-trickster Roger Stone’s new Hillary-hating 527 group, “Citizens United Not Timid” (check the capital letters). John McCain answering “How do we beat the bitch?" with “Excellent question!” Would he have dared reply similarly to “How do we beat the black bastard?” For shame.

Goodbye to the HRC nutcracker with metal spikes between splayed thighs. If it was a tap-dancing blackface doll, we would be righteously outraged—and they would not be selling it in airports. Shame.

Goodbye to the most intimately violent T-shirts in election history, including one with the murderous slogan “If Only Hillary had married O.J. Instead!” Shame.

Goodbye to Comedy Central’s “Southpark” featuring a storyline in which terrorists secrete a bomb in HRC’s vagina. I refuse to wrench my brain down into the gutter far enough to find a race-based comparison. For shame.

Goodbye to the sick, malicious idea that this is funny. This is not “Clinton hating,” not “Hillary hating.” This is sociopathic woman-hating. If it were about Jews, we would recognize it instantly as anti-Semitic propaganda; if about race, as KKK poison. Hell, PETA would go ballistic if such vomitous spew were directed at animals. Where is our sense of outrage—as citizens, voters, Americans?

RIP Tom Lantos

wikipedia: Tom Lantos

The only Holocaust survivor ever elected to Congress has died.

Inspiration (Updated, below)

It's not just Obama who's out there inspiring voters. Here's an 8 minute snippet of Michelle Obama speaking in Omaha, Nebrasks before the caucases this weekend.



Article from today's Wall Street Journal on Michelle Obama: Michelle Obama Solidifies
Her Role in the Election

Think Pink Tribute to Kay Yow

Credit: Nelson Kepley/News & Record

N.C. State's Shayla Fields, (from left) Nikitta Gartrell, Hanna Halteman and Sharnise Beal celebrate their win.

RALEIGH -- Reynolds Coliseum became a pink paradise Sunday in celebration of the third annual Hoops for Hope women's basketball game.

More than 8,000 men and women, young and old, wore ribbons and their favorite shade of pink as N.C. State defeated Boston College 60-41.

The Wolfpack (15-9, 3-6 ACC) wore specially designed pink uniforms and Kay Yow's last name on the back of each jersey to support the team's coach, who was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1987 and learned in November that she has stage-four cancer.

"We got Yow on the back of our jerseys because we knew that this day was for her, and all we wanted to do was go out, play for her and play our hardest," said junior guard Shayla Fields.

The Women's Basketball Coaches Association is sponsoring the Think Pink campaign against breast cancer. Over 900 teams have signed up to participate. NC State's entire team wore jerseys with their coach Kay Yow's name on the back. She is back coaching while undergoing treatment for Stage 4 breast cancer.

I hate all the pink stuff but it's great to see all the tributes to Kay Yow. She has done so much to promote women's basketball and her very public fight against breast cancer is inspiring.

TKO

BAGNewsNotes: Floats Like A Butterfly...
TKO, as in Technical KnockOut.

Hillary is still standing, but she is woozy and reeling. She has had to loan her campaign $5,000,000 of her own money, some of her campaign staff volunteered to work without pay, and today she sacked her campaign manager. I think a competent referee would call this fight over. I could be wrong, but I don't think so.

There is mad spinning going on, but this is what happens when a campaign is near the end. Rudy's staff worked without pay. Romney loaned his campaign money. Both of those moves preceded their dropping out.

Obama has swept the weekend's Democratic contests. Here are the state-by-state results so far (via Dailykos):

The latest count of states won by popular vote, plus the margin of victory:

Clinton (10)

Arkansas +43
Oklahoma +24
New York +17
Massachusetts +15
Tennessee +13
California +10
New Jersey +10
Arizona +9
Nevada +6
New Hampshire +3

Obama (19)

Idaho +62
Alaska +50
Kansas +48
Washington +37
Georgia +36
Nebraska +36
Colorado +35
Minnesota +35
Illinois+32
South Carolina +32
North Dakota +24
Louisiana +21
Maine +18
Utah +18
Alabama +14
Delaware +10
Iowa +9
Connecticut +4
Missouri +1

I don't see Hillary having lost this campaign so much as I see her being overwhelmed by a superior campaign and a superior messenger. As always, I wish we could combine the best traits of our best candidates. I wish we could make Obama debate like Hillary. I wish we could make him as tough as she is. I wish she hadn't voted for Bush's stupid war. I wish I could have voted for the first viable woman running for President, but I just couldn't do it. The war, the war, the war, millions dead, billions squandered, for nothing.

Whoever wins must put Iraq out of its misery and end the war.