I've come to realise I no longer have any reason to be concerned with the superdelegate issue as so vociferously  argued by the HRC campaign.  The reason is simple:  It's a game of smoke and mirrors.

Most people are well-aware that the greatest tools a magician has at his disposal are  sleight of hand and misdirection.  If the magician's audience can't be misled, and can't be distracted, the magician will not have an audience very long.  

This is precisely the game the HRC campaign is playing right now.

According to this Reuters article, The Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has filed a complaint against Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) for purported bribery.  

WASHINGTON--(Business Wire)--Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) today sent a complaint to the Department of Justice, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District for Louisiana and the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, asking for an investigation into whether Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) violated federal bribery law by including a $2 million earmark for Voyager Expanded Learning in a bill a mere four days after receiving $30,000 in campaign contributions from company executives and their relatives. CREW also asked the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate the matter.

Of course, the interesting part of this incident is that the campaign contributions came from none other than Bush friend, Randy Best.

More below...

(Cross-posted at It'll Hurt if I Swallow!)

So here we go again, folks.  People are pissed that their iPhones batteries are non-replaceable...  and the pissed people are suing.

Isn't this deja vu all over again?  Didn't the same sort of thing happen with the ipod?  Didn't people get completely pissed about the idea of such an expensive battery replacement, only for Apple to eventually lower the cost, settle the class action, and play the damage control game that they're so good at?

I think any reports on the demise of a John McCain nomination are greatly exaggerated.  In fact, I think he will be the cornerstone of a strategy to hold together the a GOP ship, at least for the time being. As much as I wish I could write this off as cynicism and snark, but I'm thinking there's the perfect storm brewing for such a scenario, morbid as some of the aspects may sound.

First of all, I'll preface this with the following notion.  As much as people like to think that the choice for VP nominee is of stellar importance in a presidential race, such a concept has, time and time again, been shown to be untrue.  For example, as much as the Dems would like to believe that a "southern state" candidate will help them pick off electoral votes in the south, it hasn't, and won't.

That said, I think there will be a strategy for the GOP's nomination, but not for all the traditional reasons.  No, I don't think they'll name someone who they think will strategically help them win.  Rather, I think they'll name someone who doesn't have a lot of exposure -- and won't, even as a veep nod, specifically because people don't pay attention to him/her?

Confusing?  Probably, on its face it sounds at very least fairly contrarian, but there's a method to the madness.

Many moons ago, I wrote an entry called The "Winning Team" Theory, in which I postulated that the GOP, at the peak of its prowess post-2004 election, was able to push the more radical ideas of some of its base, simply because the GOP was the "in crowd", and people will generally do whatever they can to be part of that crowd.  Enacting absurd, last-minute Schiavo legislation?  Go ahead!  Continued pounding of the war drums?  Sure!  Invading the privacy of millions of Americans?  Terrific!  The GOP was able to get away with this precisely because they were the clique and everyone wanted to be one of the debutantes.

I never thought that the GOP was owned by the Christian right.  Rather, I felt that they were using a plank of the Christian Right under which they could rally all the troops... and they were able to do so, not because everyone believed in the idea so much as they wanted to ride the braggadocio-laden coattails of the clique.
 
Following the 2006 election, I feel even more confident that this theory holds water -- and I've found some evidence in a very interesting place -- the Free Republic "freepathons".  Read on...

First there's Rumsfeld's resignation -- which honestly shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone... when you have people calling from within the military for it, that stings more than any partisan attack.

But what do we see next?  Oh-ho!  Have we, dare I say, forgotten Poland?  Lest we have, the newest news from our most referenced ally of the 2004 election is that they're saying they were misled into joining the war?

More below...

In the past week, Karl Rove has been promising Republican insiders an "October surprise" to help win the November congressional elections.

President Bush's political strategist is also saying that the final two weeks before the elections will see a blitz of advertising, and the Republican National Committee is deploying an army of volunteers to key locations to help the grass-roots effort and monitor the elections.

The RNC is offering to fly in volunteers and cover their expenses.

Rove is not saying what the October surprise will be.

* Next, we have conventional wisdom out there is that Bush will approve, at least in the release of its findings, whatever conclusion the committee comes to.

(More...)

Well, let's take a look at some things I've noticed...

(read on...)

I've taken an old classic, and put together a few new verses for it.  Maybe someone more talented than I could record it.

Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out: 2006

Once I lived the life of a Sena-taire,
Spit on my voters, I just did not care.
Rebuked Bill Clinton, an unkind attack,
Voted for cloture and war in Iraq...

Then I began to fall so low,
Lost the primary, I did not have nowhere to go.
I get my hands on some respect again,
I'm gonna hang on to it with a goofy grin.

(continued...)

At the time of this posting, if you go to Google news and search for lieberman hacked, you'll see close to one hundred news stories perpetuating the Lieberman campaign's story that their website was hacked.  There are even two references on the front page:

* Democrat's Senate campaign alleges (The Age)
* Lieberman campaign says Web site hacked (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

The Lieberman campaign is making thinly-veiled statements that the Lamont crowd is behind it -- but in the end, but for a system to be hacked, there would have to be either:

* A failure of the Lieberman campaign to adequately implement security in their PHP web-scripting, or
* A failure on the part of MyHostCamp to implement adequate system security measures.

In both situations, the onus falls, either directly or indirectly, on the host... and it's for this reason MyHostCamp needs to release a statement.

(read more...)

Hey all... so man!  How about that! I know it's got to be frustrating.  One vote short for the flag burningdesecration amendment.  I mean, sure, one would think that, just in time for Fourth of July and a mere few months before the 2006 midterm election, people would be energised over this flag issue, right?  Man, tough beans.

Well, tell you what.  I'll compromise with you.  I agree with you that the American flag is a very important symbol of America, national identity, and what we stand for as a people.  For that reason alone, I think now, so close to our nation's birthday, that it would be a good time to examine what US Code Title 4 might tell us about proper flag usage.  Because none of us would want to to be on the wrong side of things regarding such an important national symbol... we'd never dilute the importance of our flag, or be caught doing anything that could be construed as such, right?  

Right.  So just to be sure...
(more after the cut...)

Yes, according to the Washington Post, Newt Gingrich, no doubt emboldened by the results of the recent Minnesota straw poll, is leaning towards a run at the GOP ticket in 2008.

In remarks that were critical of both parties' recent performance, Gingrich told a luncheon group of scholars and reporters at the Brookings Institution that he will make a decision in the fall of 2007 about running.

"If at that point there's still a vacuum . . . then we'll probably do something," Gingrich said, adding that his policy pronouncements have more weight if he is seen as a potential presidential candidate. "If you're interested in defining the idea context and the political context for the next generation of Americans, which I am, the most effective way to do that is to be seen as potentially available."

More below.

This said, criticisms in any efforts, be it fully successful or a complete failure, are an important part of the feedback loop.  As the special election has ended, I think all of these post-mortems that we are seeing are in order.  Such things are an important part of any project.  Lessons learned are key.  Posters (and commenters) need to take care as to not be overtly offensive, and those involved in the effort need to be aware that such criticisms are not generally personal attacks.

And my observations? Well, to summarise the relevant portions of two comments I made last night, and I apologise to those who saw this already... Christine Pelosi posted the following snippet last night, regarding the Busby campaign's GOTV efforts.  I read it and immediately took pause... (read on)

(with apologies to Green Day, the album is great, guys)
Wake Me Up When Fitztember Ends

Springtime has come and passed
Claims like these can never last
Wake me up when Fitztember ends

Leopold is passing gas,
While Wayne Madsen talks out his ass.
Wake me up when Fitztember ends.

Here come the claims again
Falling from their jaws
A "source close to the case" again,
What fools they think we are!

As my champagne goes flat
I'll never forget just what they spat
Wake me up when Fitztember ends.

(cont'd)

• I used to have AT&T as my local phone service when I lived in Northern Virginia -- as a protest against Verizon's refusal to offer broadband -- and then AT&T later on decides they are no longer going to take on new local service.
  
• I had AT&T Wireless as my mobile phone provider, until AT&T sold it to Cingular.
  
• AT&T Corp. was bought by SBC whereupon the new corporate name became "AT&T"
  
• Now, AT&T is purchasing BellSouth -- who happens to be my telco/dsl provider -- and why?  Read on...

However, it seems he's caught the ire of the Australian authorities for reading a copy of Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia on the airplane.  This raised the supicions of the passenger sitting next to him... and by all accounts, the end result raised Rollins' hackles, too.  

More below, including quotes...

Listening to Air America online this weekend, I noticed two irksome things.  The first one is the fact that listening to the radio stream while advertisements are played opens browser pop-ups referring to the ad in question.  That this happens over and over again -- and thus, if you leave your computer for a while, there are twenty new pop-ups for the same thing across your computer monitor -- is something of an annoyance.  This said, however, it's a revenue stream that Air America needs, and seeing as it was for a reasonably useful product (internet-based teleconferencing for business), I don't have such a huge problem with it.

The other ad I heard a lot is problematic to me, and Air America isn't the only one that seems to be ensnared.  Read on...

After waiting a while, seeing no new version, and having at least a modicum of a clue as to what the solution would be, I added Firefox v1.5 to the compatibility list and repackaged the whole thing as version 0.421_unofficial, which can be found here*.

*IMPORTANT: New info and releases discussed below the cut...