Obama kicks his garbage to the curb

"I might not know him as well as I thought."

Rev Wright's victimology has no place in Obama's campaign of shared goals through personal responsibility-taking.

Time away

My mother-in-law passed away recently.

Pretty much everything got put on hold to work through this--planning the funeral, people coming into town, etc. I even had to work up the courage to sing at her funeral mass (Swing Low Sweet Chariot, in case you are interested).

Will try to get back to speed soon.

Rice shortage?

Another story coming out of the blue.

Republicans looking to block expansion of pay discrimination rights

Last year the Supreme Court ruled against Lilly Ledbetter, who filed a pay discrimination suit against Goodyear because they would routinely paying her less than her male colleagues for similar work. SCOTUS rejected the suit since she needed to have filed within 6 months (!) of the first instance of the discrimination (she was underpaid for years, and didn't find out about it until then).

Republicans want to block the bill, apparently because there are a large number of people who are being discriminated against now. Er, wait--maybe because these people would want the court to redress a wrong committed against them. No, that's not it--must be because the court system is overwhelmed that legitimate claims shouldn't burden them further. Hmmm. Doesn't sound right. Anyone want to take a stab at their reasoning?

A bitter post

CQ Politics with an exhaustive analysis of Pennsylvania and the likely delgate allocation
Their prediction: Clinton 53 Obama 50.
Because of the way PA allocates delagates, it is difficult for a candidate to run away with the numbers, and the wide range of voters here make it unlikely that either candidate will win on macro grounds either.
Meanwhile, Bitter-gate (that is, the Elitists calling Obama an elitist and getting offended by it) appears to have had little effect in Pennsylvania.

Old CFLs being taken in at IKEA stores

Worried about the mercury in CFL's and live near an IKEA? Worry no more. Take 'em over to IKEA to be collected.

Photoshop disasters

Should have known there were a few sites like this, but this one seems to be pretty good.

Philly political machine gets a big "no" from the Obama campaign

Campaign refuses to pay bribes, er, "street money."

Don Young's Coconut Road amendment getting scrutiny--finally.

Years after what appears to be a clear unconstitutional move to add $10 million to a bill after it was voted on, Sen Tom Coburn (R-OK) appears ready to force the issue with an investigation.

Earmarks are bad enough. Earmarks with such clear kickbacks are worse. But earmarks after the bill has passed? Par for the course for the Alaskan "delegation."

Republicans: If we don't continue to spend billions in Iraq, "that would wreak havoc on our national and economic security "

Talk about getting it backwards!

Let's find some analogies, shall we?

"If we don't continue to charge on our credit cards, our finances will be in shambles!"

"We must keep up with doomsday analogies, or else we'd be forced to engage with Americans!"

Any more?

Credit card companies: Scum

Don't get me wrong: Credit cards can be good things. But anytime you get a company in the position of making easy money with the ability to change the rules at any time there is going to be rampant unethical behavior.

The stories are simply incredible. Seriously--take the worst credit card story you can imagine, and it has not only happened recently but happened many times across the country.

Now, some credit card companies, instead of holding you to the credit line, allow you to go over it without warning and increase your interest rate on top of a fee per month for each month you are over the limit.

I watched Maxed Out last week--this should be required viewing (I don't really mean that, but so many people are clueless about credit that you feel like there should be some simple test required).

And while I can do without his Biblical quote drop-ins, Dave Ramsey is pretty damn good if you are looking for a way out.

2008 Senate races

Dems looking good to increase their Senate lead

Even just one more Senator and Lieberman will be booted, I suspect.

Odd news sampler

Cops bust kids' root beer party

Meanwhile, after the root beer party:

Garden gnome left on tracks by teens in France holds up high speed train

Man tries to hide drugs from police--in donut box. :)

Who knew they'd look in there?

Senator Clinton's travels as First Lady

HRC's travels as First Lady.

That's a lot of sniper fire!

HT: TPM

Philly schools efforts cut fat kid rates in half

Common sense things like no candy, replacing sodas with fruit juice and a heavy educational component make some big changes in fat kid rates.

I did have to laugh out loud at the following:

For the study, changes were made to the food in vending machines or the cafeteria in five of the schools. Juice, water and low-fat milk replaced sodas. Snacks had to meet limits for fat, salt and sugar. Students who ate healthy snacks got raffle tickets to win prizes such as bikes and jump ropes.

"We found when you give children healthy choices, they pick them," said Grace McGinley, school nurse at Francis Hopkinson School, one of the test schools.

No, Nurse McGinley. You found that when you took away all bad choices that the kids got healthier. This wasn't a matter of kids choosing healthy foods over junk food.

Jeez. Even when the evidence is right there in front of them they insist upon casting it completely incorrectly.

Don't get me wrong: This is great news, and there should never be soda and junk food sold in elementary schools. But let's not cast this as some kind of "choice" by the kids.

Yoo memo

The Yoo memo, declassified

One thing I gotta hand to the Republicans: They shure are focused on the end result. They don't mind selling off the soul of the country to get there.

Glenn Greenwald with some tasty commentary.