3/14/2008

Obama Gains Wisconsin Superdeligate

Wisconsin Superdelegate Endorses Barack Obama for President

Chicago, IL – Today Wisconsin superdelegate Melissa Schroeder endorsed Barack Obama for president, citing his unique ability to stand up to the special interests and unite all Americans to bring about real, meaningful change.

Melissa Schroeder said: “After much consideration, I have decided to endorse Senator Barack Obama. My decision came down to electability and who I felt would do a better job of unifying this country for a common purpose. Obama's message of hope and change has touched millions of voters in a way that I haven't seen since the late 1960's. People from every walk of life, young and the not so young, Democrats, Independents and some Republicans, are all rallying around a belief that change can happen if we want it bad enough. With Obama as our nominee, I am confident that this November we will increase our majority in the House and Senate and elect a Democrat to the White House.”

Melissa Schroeder is Wisconsin’s 7th District Democratic Party Secretary.

Bush Sings Farewell Song

3/13/2008

That Damn Accordian: Musical Intercourse

Mr. Clean Is Washed Up

Real Patriots Have Bumper Stickers
















Letters from Ely - Sickening

by Duane Behrens
Saturday, March 08, 2008

This morning, a fan of mine sent the following e-mail: "Your columns sicken me. If you don't like what Bush is doing to protect the Homeland you should move to Iran or some other place where your communistic crap will be appreciated. You and all your [expletive deleted] friends are traitors to our troops and to our nation. Your agenda stinks. Take it somewhere else." [Name withheld]

After thinking about this for awhile, I penned the following response:

Funny. Your post made me think of pagers. You know, those little beepy things we carried before cell phones? I was the first in my high school to have one, after the principal got tired of looking for me whenever Dad went down.

See, Dad had been over at Guadalcanal in the summer and fall of 1942 during World War II - a war I believe absolutely had to be fought. Grandma told me he'd been a high school over-achiever before he left - a tall, strong, good looking farm kid who could really make the girls laugh. Funny how after the war, she always spoke of him in the past tense.

Not sure what changed him over there. Maybe it was those pieces of metal in his left lobe, although most of it stopped moving eventually. Maybe it was those months of having to step over the corpses of his buddies in the middle of the night to steal rice and fish heads from enemy supply caches. (They'd had to do this to survive, you see. The American supply ships had hauled ass out of there without unloading, after three of their escort ships were blown out of the water by the Japanese.) Or, maybe it was the electro-shock "therapy" he and his buddies got at the VA upon their return that turned him.

Whatever. He eventually found work as a high school janitor in that small Minnesota town where I grew up. When my pager went off, I'd have to leave history class or football practice to sit with him in a classroom or in a corridor. I mostly remember all the sweat that poured off his face as the seizure put him on an invisible torture rack . . . contorting his body into impossible angles as all those devils from two decades past came by for their twice-monthly visit.

Sometimes class would let out as I held him there. I never looked up as my classmates went to and from their lockers. It's not that I was embarrassed. But I'd often have tears in my eyes and I didn't want them to see.

Funny, though. Dad never cried, and he never moaned and he never screamed. He just took it. And when each seizure ended, he'd get up, and I'd get up, and we'd carry on as if it never happened.

Dad's gone now. Before the funeral service started, I held his hand as I stood by his casket, glad he'd found relief from 40 years of reliving one helluva six-month stint. And I quietly thank him and everyone like him every time I stand at his headstone. As a grown man, I find it odd that those tears still come whenever I'm there by his grave. Conditioned reflex, maybe.

Well. Listen to me, going on. My apologies, for having the gall to suggest that wars that kill kids should only be fought for a damned good reason. If I can find a picture of a flag somewhere, I'll be sure to tape one onto my bumper. Thanks to all our veterans - I hope you'll be okay.

But mostly, thanks to Dad - for teaching me why hateful insults from false patriots should always and only be given the same consideration as a wispy phart in a Minnesota snowstorm.

3/12/2008

Ferraro Resigns from Hillary Campaign

Ferraro said Illinois senator was succeeding because he was black

3/10/2008

Clinton's 3am girl says the answer is Obama











So who do you want answering the phone at 3am? For Casey Knowles, it's got to be Barack Obama.

Casey is the little girl shown asleep in the controversial Hillary Clinton advert that aired in Texas before last week's primary, playing on fears about Mr Obama's relative lack of experience in foreign policy matters.

The advert shows the exterior of a Colonial-style home and old stock footage of Knowles sleeping in bed. A narrator describes a phone ringing in the White House: “It’s 3am and your children are safely asleep. Who do you want answering the phone?”

But she is not too happy about the advert itself. “What I don’t like about the ad is its fear-mongering,” she said. “I think it’s a cheap hit to take. I really prefer Obama’s message of looking forward to a bright future.”

Ms Knowles, a high school senior in Washington state, has been campaigning for Mr Obama and attended his rally at Seattle’s KeyArena on February 8, crying and trembling after shaking his hand.

The next day, she was a Democratic precinct captain for the state’s caucuses and she could yet be chosen to go to the national convention – although she will end up voting for whichever candidate the party chooses in November's election.

Before then Ms Knowles she might feature in another advert. She has already suggested to the Obama campaign that she team up with the candidate for an anti-Hillary ad. “They thought that was really funny. They actually might take me up on it,” she said.

Are You Getting Wet Yet?



“From 1946 to 1961 we thought in terms of dollars rather than of people. We thought in terms of gross national product rather than in terms of gross national product one that Herbert Hoover employed in 1930. By pouring in money on the top, we hoped that some would reach the bottom. But in feudal societies the few at the top kept practically all of it. Millions were stolen and banked aboard. What was not stolen was used to entrench those who already owned and controlled the nation.”

Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
Democracy’s Manifesto: A Counter Plan for the Free Society
Published 1962

The complete lack of evidence is the surest sign that the conspiracy is working

“Society is one vast conspiracy for carving one into the kind of statue it likes, and then placing it in the most convenient niche it has.”

Randolph Bourne



"All political theories assume, of course, that most individuals are very ignorant. Those who plead for liberty differ from the rest in that they include among the ignorant themselves as well as the wisest."

F. A. Hayek

3/09/2008

Who Is Dorian Gray?


"In this job you've got a lot on your plate on a regular basis; you don't have much time to sit around and wander, lonely, in the Oval Office, kind of asking different portraits, 'How do you think my standing will be?'"

George W. Bush