As Markos pointed out in his election day post The Iowa and South Dakota gubernatorial primaries are worth watching today both for their connection to the 2008 presidential race and the effects on the electorates of those two states of the South Dakota abortion ban.
It looks like incumbent Dave Heineman, who took the place of Ag. Sec. Mike Johanns, has weathered the storm of the coach, Tom Osborne's run for Nebraska's governor's seat. A year or so ago when Osborne announced he was leaving his House seat for the governorship most observers immediately called the election for Osborne since he had led the state's university to three national championships in football.
I spent awhile scanning the diaries for Armando's inevitable triumphant diary on the Florida Gators championship Monday night but I realized maybe Armando doesn't hang on our every word when college sports are invloled.
As if you couldn't guess, the Nebraska gubenatorial race for 2006 boils down to the GOP primary race...and it's going to be good. Gov. Dave Heineman took his seat after Mike Johanns was summoned to Washington to be the new Secretary of Agriculture. His main challenger is known to most Nebraskans as Coach. Coach Tom Osborne (NE-03), that is. Waiting in the wings is Dave Nabity, an Omaha businessman.
I haven't done this for awhile but I thought it was about time to throw out some new records. Most of these are new albums from established artists because fall is the time to release big records.
I just came across this doozy on a local blog which probably wouldn't take the traffic so I won't link it but it appears the Bushes have a mystical Asian warrior helping them.
More than an hour into a solemn ceremony naming Rep. Marco Rubio, R-West Miami, as the 2007-08 House Speaker, Gov. Jeb Bush stepped to the podium in the House chamber last week and told a short story about "unleashing Chang," his "mystical warrior" friend.
As most of you might have heard by now, Rafael Palmeiro of the Baltimore Orioles (and former Cub) tested positive for steroids not long after becoming only the fourth player in baseball history to have over 500 home runs and 3000 hits.
You probably also know that he was one of the spotlighted major league ball players who testified in front of a congressional committee last spring about steroids and swore under oath that he had never used steroids.
As long as I've been around here Friday and Saturday nights were the time to post non-political, fun or otherwise non-Rove diaries.
As a long-recovering record-store-guy these are some of the most interesting new albums I've listened to over the past week or so. As the Chicagoland residents swelter to Lollapalooza in Grant Park, you can hang out in your cool basement and nod your heads to this.
Last month the federal court for the Southern District of New York held that corporations could be held liable under international law for violations of jus cogens or "higher law," the laws among nations that govern genocide, slavery, torture, extrajudicial killings and the like.
Paul Bremer, during his tenure as Viceroy, granted sweeping immunities to U.S. contractors in Iraq but is limited to the official acts under their contracts. What happens when the official acts violate international law? How about unofficial acts? I've read that it would be difficult to prosecute them in Iraqi courts, but this decision suggests that the Alien Tort Statute may provide a way to sue U.S. contractors in U.S. courts.
[I've been reading dkos since it came on-line and comment occasionally, but this is my first diary entry.]
Since 2003 I've been watching with interest the radid development of the South Dakota blogosphere. It's kind of interesting how intense the politics is up there all the time when south of Valentine, Sioux City and the Missouri River things quiet down quite a bit in off years.
Anyway, my neighbors to the north has what one might called a fairlywelldevelopedblogosphere. The intense contest between Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle and Republican wunderkind John Thune in 2004 no doubt played a significant role in the rapid maturation of this medium among South Dakota's political observers. Daschle's defeat left a number of talented political professionals with time on their hands, some of who started their own political weblogs.
