http://www.bythefault.com

I'm reminded of Tracy Morgan's final line in his rebuttal to Tina Fey.

Take away that final line, or just take away the one word at the end, and the snear that accompanied it, and you know, I might be willing to buy the idea that the rest of it was funny.  Take away that one word at the end, and how it was spoken by Morgan at the end, and I probably would have agreed with BTD that it was funny.

So now I see this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBGyuYKlxIg

And it's cute.  I think it's sort of funny in a way (even if it is mis-informing people on the real nature of the race), until it gets to the last line.

Why add that last line?  Wasn't the point made?

Someone the other night called it "smacktalk on a basketball court."

And I think that's a great way to describe Obama's support.

But it's also laced with some real sociological sense of injustice.  I mean some of that is real.

And it's dressed up in spiritualism.

It's a nasty cocktail from my point of view.  Is that just because I'm a Clinton partisan and all that anger is directed at Clinton?

I guess.

As we noted at the time of that meeting, Clinton's decision to sit down with the Trib was courageous, given our longstanding criticism of her. That is no small matter: Political courage is essential in a president. Clinton has demonstrated it; Obama has not.

She has a real record. He doesn't.

She has experience of value to a president. He doesn't.

Clearly, she's the wiser choice to represent Democrats this fall.

In speaking to general views on resource depletion/allocation, he states:

How you answer this question depends largely on what you believe is driving the rise in resource prices. Broadly speaking, there are three competing views.

The first is that it's mainly speculation -- that investors, looking for high returns at a time of low interest rates, have piled into commodity futures, driving up prices. On this view, someday soon the bubble will burst and high resource prices will go the way of Pets.com.

The second view is that soaring resource prices do, in fact, have a basis in fundamentals -- especially rapidly growing demand from newly meat-eating, car-driving Chinese -- but that given time we'll drill more wells, plant more acres, and increased supply will push prices right back down again.

The third view is that the era of cheap resources is over for good -- that we're running out of oil, running out of land to expand food production and generally running out of planet to exploit.

He goes on to say he finds himself somewhere between the second and third views. I do as well, although I'm a bit more into the third.

Sadly, the currently raging political debate has not touched much on it. Just talking about gas and food prices is not enough. Maybe it's too scary, too dangerous to discuss.

What's down the road ahead? It may not look like "Mad Max" or "Soylent Green," but it's not looking very pretty.

PETA sponsors 'X-prize' for in vitro meat

["Do you think for one minute that Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid will allow this fight to go on and on and on?" says Donna Brazile, an uncommitted superdelegate as an official of the Democratic National Committee, and manager of the 2000 Gore campaign. "There's a group around [Sen. Clinton] that really wants to take the fight to the convention. They don't care about the party. It scares me, and that's what scares a lot of superdelegates."]

20% will jump ship to vote for McCain.
4% will vote for Nader.
20% Undecided.

What's worse is the Clinton supporters are still much more likely to vote for McCain.

24% of Clinton supporters will vote for McCain.
14% of Obama supporters will vote for McCain.

......[Carter] was declared persona non grata by Israel.

The boycott will not be remembered as a glorious moment in this government's history. Jimmy Carter has dedicated his life to humanitarian missions, to peace, to promoting democratic elections, and to better understanding between enemies throughout the world.

[snip]

But Israelis have not liked him since he wrote the book "Palestine: Peace not Apartheid."

Israel is not ready for such comparisons, even though the situation begs it. It is doubtful whether it is possible to complain when an outside observer, especially a former U.S. president who is well versed in international affairs, sees in the system of separate roads for Jews and Arabs, the lack of freedom of movement, Israel's control over Palestinian lands and their confiscation, and especially the continued settlement activity, which contravenes all promises Israel made and signed, a matter that cannot be accepted. The interim political situation in the territories has crystallized into a kind of apartheid that has been ongoing for 40 years.

from digby:

Bring It On II

The first time a Bush Administration official dared the Iraqi insurgency to attack Americans, they did, with devastating consequences that reverberate to this day. In a show of sound judgment, they went and did it again.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice mocked anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as a coward on Sunday, hours after the radical leader threatened to declare war unless U.S. and Iraqi forces end a military crackdown on his followers.

[snip]

Never mind the absurdity of the statement - Condi shows up in Baghdad, behind fortified Green Zone walls, one day a year, and she's talking about someone ELSE sending minions to their death while they're in calm and comfort? - but this is a death warrant for many of our troops.