I have had an interesting conversation downstream and thought I'd take a moment to ask a question.

How do we know Senator Obama gave an antiwar speech in 2002?

Oh, we can go to youtube and find a video labeled "Obama; Antiwar Rally; Oct 26, 2002."

http://www.youtube.com/...

where he appears to be addressing a crowd about the war, but that video is a "reenactment" (with exceptional attention given to the "handheld video" production values) as discussed here:

http://www.suntimes.com/...

Something here is giving me that "hinky" feeling. . .something doesn't really make sense at all.  I live in a world filled with conservatives.  I know the way they talk and I know kinda the way they think. . .so when I read a diary "front paged above" diary "Bill Moyers is a true journalist! Discussion of Wright Interview" I had to wonder if I was being played for a sucker.

I used to a own a townhouse down the street from where Obama lives now; Blackstone Ave, birthplace of the Blackstone Rangers, one of Chicago's toughest gangs (evolved into the El Rukns--tougher still.)  On Sunday evenings sometimes I used to walk down the street past Louis Farrakhan's house (more like a vault than a house--major league security) in order to stand in front of one of Hyde Park's Baptist Churches and listen to the choir.  Transcendent.  

(The Great Harold Washington was mayor then.  I've been trying to find the right words to describe him--but I can't say anything except. . .nope. . .he was. . .nah. . .anything I write down doesn't do him justice.

She is young, pregnant for the first time and has no health insurance.  And yes, she works for Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

Will someone please inject this into the current rhetoric involving federal prosecuters and their status as pleasure agents of the President.

As a physician I cannot tell you how important this is.  Walmart has made a business/marketing move that should change the way health care is practiced in America.  I'd like to take a moment to tell everyone what it is and what the ramifications are.

Long ago I got an undergraduate degree in mathematics.  I'm not a mathematician but I've used statistical analysis for clinical trials (as a physician) and I have a kinda feel for numbers.  Some people are great at this.  They can glance at a complicated formula a page and a half long and tell you that the solution is 4.43 in a heart beat.  They are great.  I would rate myself as so-so.

Mike Jones doesn't quite make sense.  He had a sex for money relationship with a high profile evangelical minister.  He knows going in that the guy has built an empire on homophobia.  But even though Jones has no qualms about having sex for money, he has lots of qualms about some hypocrit preaching against gay marriage.  Well, he's known this for three years, why would he pick a week before a crucial election to out the guy?  And no attempts at blackmail?--I bet this info would be worth a couple of million to those closely involved.

I am expanding a bit on a comment I made in a different thread.  I preface this by saying that I could care less what Republicans do in the privacy of their own boudoir but Republicans themselves have made homosexuality a campaign issue and with that in mind maybe we should explore what this means a little more.

in 24 hours of fighting.
I believe the old world is melting away as we snooze out the last few hours of a perfectly ordinary weekend.

Per Robert Fisk of Britain's "Independent"

http://news.independent.co.uk/...

The Israeli army, reeling under the Hizbollah's onslaught of the past 24 hours, is now facing the harshest guerrilla war in its history. And it is a war they may well lose.

In all, at least 39 - possibly 43 - Israeli soldiers have been killed in the past day as Hizbollah guerrillas, still launching missiles into Israel itself, have fought back against Israel's massive land invasion into Lebanon.

Israeli military authorities talked of "cleaning" and "mopping up" operations by their soldiers south of the Litani river but, to the Lebanese, it seems as if it is the Hizbollah that have been doing the "mopping up". By last night, the Israelis had not even been able to reach the dead crew of a helicopter - shot down on Saturday night - which crashed into a Lebanese valley.

Don't believe this story has been noted:

On the site Nieman Watchdog; Questions the Press Should Ask
http://www.niemanwatchdog.org

Larry Wilkerson, who served Colin Powell as a close aide for 16 years, proposed these questions for the press to ask Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld:
http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/...

Q. Define torture.

Q. Do we do torture?

Q. There have been dozens of homicides and more than a hundred deaths in U.S. custody. Is killing someone not the ultimate torture?

Q. If those cases were just the work of bad apples, why were the investigations dragged out so long? Why, for instance, did it take the Army two years before filing charges related to the homicides at Bagram Air Force Base in December 2002?

Q. Why are the sentences for the "bad apples" so light? Isn't it the case that in these military courts martial, their military peers recognize they were following orders?

Over in  TPM Cafe land Todd Gitlin (whose biographical blurb states he "professes at" Columbia University) notes in

N. H. Continued, Continued: Leads! Angles!

Maine's Bangor Daily News
http://www.bangornews.com/...
offers reporters an angle to pursue if anyone's interested in pursuing the much undercovered story of Republican phone-jamming in New Hampshire. Turns out that small fish Republican consultant Allan Raymond, a cooperative conspirator in the scheme to tie up Democratic and union phone lines during the 2002 senatorial race, gets out of Federal prison in Pennsylvania next week after serving three months (his sentence reduced from five months after bigger fish Tobin was convicted). Recall that Raymond's telemarketing firm was co-founded by Haley Barbour.

Jump here.

Raw Story reports on a New York Times story to be published today that the Time Magazine reporter who testified on Rove's behalf in Sept-Oct 2005 took buyout after 'dispute' over role in leak case.  In other words, the woman, Viveca Novak (or the Lesser Novak) was politely shown the door shortly after she testified in Rove's defense

I would just like to remind everyone of a seminal event in American politics.  It occurred on Jan 6, 2005, so just a little more than a year ago.   It was dubbed "The Boxer Rebellion" and it occurred during the count of Electoral College votes when Barbara Boxer and Democrat Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Cleveland, Ohio stood to object to the counting of Ohio electoral votes due to voting day irregularities. The counting of electoral votes was suspended for four hours while the issue was debated in the House.  

The debate didn't last long and most Democrats voted with Republicans to accept the slate.  Still this was a very unusual event.  The last time an objection to a full state slate of electors was made in 1877.  

Afterwards House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas said the effort to delay Bush's victory was shameful and showed that the Democratic Party is dominated by conspiracy theorists he dubbed the party's "X-Files" wing.

Fact: The statistical methodology involved in exit polling has been well studied and found to be robust.

Fact: Eight states in the presidential election of 2004 were found to have deviated more than 1% between exit poll and certified results.  One favored Kerry (by about 1%)

The other six:

A former Pentagon analyst was sentenced to 12 years and seven months in prison on Friday for passing U.S. defence information to two pro-Israel lobbyists and for sharing classified information with an Israeli diplomat.

http://www.swissinfo.org/...

Ellis said Franklin would not have to go to jail to start serving his sentence until he was finished cooperating.

Wonder what he has to say.

Last  night I saw a bit of the clip that had the Letterman smack down of Bill O'Reilly.  At one point Letterman came up short at an argument that gets replayed all the time--a meme, if you will--but to which he had no satisfactory response.  (You could see him reaching just before he broke down and said: "Okay, I'm not a smart as you are but 60% of what you say is crap.)

Iraq conflict still in early stages, report says
http://news.ft.com/...

We will pull out shortly after someone puts a stake through Dick Cheney's heart and not a moment sooner.