"I submit that you are illogical"

Alas, Evil Spock Krugman still lives...

Today on his NY Times blog, the once-good Professor weighs in on the issue of the gas tax. He's an economist...he's a Clinton supporter...could this be interesting? Will he be the first economist with a pulse to support it? Or will he go off the reservation and hammer Clinton for this idiocy?

Gas Tax Hysterics

OK, this has gone overboard.

Hillary Clinton’s proposed gas tax holiday is not, in my view, a good idea. [...]

Whoa! Krugman's gonna join the reality-based chorus? He's gonna call this out as the politics, rather than policy, that it is?...

Not exactly.

Krugman instead uses this column to hammer other economists for making a big deal out of what he deems a really unimportant little issue.

But the furor over what is, when all is said and done, a small and temporary policy proposal is entirely disproportionate... [economists] place excessive weight on issues where professional judgment differs from lay opinion...So when a presidential candidate says something that conflicts with economistic wisdom, it becomes THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE EVER. Except, you know, it isn’t.

Um, Professor? I don't really think it's the economists that are making this the biggest fucking issue facing the planet—it's your candidate! Have you been in a cave the last two weeks? Hillary is putting on a demagoguery clinic! The reason responsible economists are weighing in is that for once the media is doing it's job (slightly) and asking them.

What's that? You can explain that too?

Part of it, clearly, is the fact that many people in the media really, really want Obama to win and Clinton to lose...and have seized on the gas tax as their latest proof that she is ee-ee-vil.

Ho-lee fuck. Now it's the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy...

Of course, the Gas Tax Holiday IS a stupid little issue. Not only stupid, but actually irrelevant to this race as it won't actually happen this summer no matter what HRC promises to the contrary. But the reason this has become such a BIG deal is because Hillary Clinton has made it the centerpiece of her revamped populist approach, AND as her main weapon against Obama—declaring him "elite" and uncaring" for disagreeing with her (and McCain). She has made it a big deal, and the fact that she is presenting the whole thing dishonestly and disingenuously requires responsible economists speak out.

Perhaps one day, you will once again join them Mr. Krugman.

UPDATE: That column is from May 6, before results from that days primaries. Here is Krugman today:

Talleyrand and the gas tax holiday

I’m on record as saying that Hillary Clinton’s advocacy of a gas-tax holiday, while it wasn’t good policy, didn’t rise to the level of a crime.

Judging from last night’s results, however, it was worse than a crime: it was a mistake.

Wrong. It was a crime against decency and integrity—it was fraud and it was perjury. The public showed her (and you apparently) that we've had enough of that shit.

Prediction

Why not? Everybody else is doing it...

INDIANA: Clinton wins by 5 or less.

NORTH CAROLINA: Obama by at least 10.

That will increase his delegate lead by another half dozen or more while taking half the remaining delegates off the table. Hillary's math only gets worse.

UPDATE: I'm happy to be wrong if this is the result: Obama by a wider than predicted 15 in N.C. and a narrower than expected 2-point loss in Indiana. He gains 15 delegates and 200,000 in the popular vote at the end of the day.

Not Just a Maverick...

John McCain's also an action hero...


McCain Declines Secret Service, Dares Assassins To Try Something

Hilarious. "The Onion" and "The Daily Show" continue to lead the world in journalism.

Speaking of dropped in a jungle, check out Fridge's fisking of Bear Grylls.

Profiles in Courage. Or Not.

[TPM link] John and Elizabeth Edwards have finally made their endorsement plans -- or lack of them -- official.

On the eve of potentially decisive voting in Indiana and North Carolina, with political tensions at white-hot levels, John and Elizabeth revealed all in an interview with People magazine, of all outlets.

The news in the interview is that they confirmed they will not endorse either candidate in the presidential race, because they are "saving their political capital for their own causes -- his, fighting poverty; hers, fighting for universal health care," reports, um, People mag.

Thanks guys! There is no moment I can imagine when your "political capital" will be worth a fraction of what it is worth at this moment. Good luck with that. Keep that powder dry.

Seriously. I never had the Edwards love that many on the Left had. Not this time, and not in 2004. I always had the impression he was a bit of a charlatan. He reinvented himself as a populist this last time around, and certainly had moments when he was making a valuable contribution to the race, but once his window closed he took his ball and went home.

Now faced with a decision that requires risk and has unclear implications, Edwards punts. Maybe he didn't get what he wanted from either candidate? Maybe he's afraid to pick the wrong horse? Maybe he wants to endorse Clinton but is afraid of the Obama blowback?

I don't know, but this does NOT impress me a bit. There are thousands of his supporters looking for a little leadership here and he offers none. This isn't MArch when one could say with a straight face that the choices were pretty close. After the last two months, if John Edwards is unable to discern a difference between Obama and Clinton, then he is a fucking moron. One of these candidates embodies everything he was running against, and the other—while not perfectly aligned—is fighting for the same things he supposedly was. Has he not been paying attention to Hillary's non-stop pander-fest in his home state over the last week? Literally saying anything to peel off votes?

I was disappointed in Edwards the day he rolled over for Dick Cheney in the 2004 VP debate, this is far worse.

UPDATE: The TPM link above seems to be hinky, here is the PEOPLE teaser interview.

Whose Votes Matter

Cutting Through the Bullshit

While in North Carolina, I had the pleasure of seeing Hillary Clinton's preposterous Gas Tax Holiday pander-thon all over the tv... Here's Obama calling that shit what it is...

Is This a Real Question?

From NPR:

Politics & Society
If Your Neighbor Poses as Your Husband, Is it Rape?

Day to Day, May 5, 2008 · Massachusetts is the latest state to consider putting a new crime on the books: rape by fraud. Currently, a sex act only qualifies as rape if physical force is used. We talk to a woman who was tricked into having sex with her boyfriend's brother, who pretended to be her boyfriend — and unable to convict him of rape because of this limited definition.

Yes, that's fucking rape. It's not about physical force, it's about consent. What the fuck is wrong with Massachusetts? A woman who consents to have sex with her husband, and then when the lights come on finds out it's an impostor, was just raped by any common sense interpretation of the term I can fathom. I cannot even believe this is a law.

--

Oh, and do you know what else is rape? THIS. And the fucking assholes in Oklahoma just wrote this into law...

Births and Resurrections

TWINS!
First of all, congratulations are in order to the Smittys who welcomed two more to the clan late last week. Mrs F gave me the news while I was out of town and unable to go online. I'm out-femaled 3-1 around here, but with new twins boys, Smitty Jr, and a giant boy-at-heart and in-deed (Smitty himself), Mrs Smitty is in a whole other world...

Get your ass off the computer, Smitty, and change a diaper or two! Or ten.

NACHOS!
Earlier today I got a comment from beyond the grave from Otto Man. Actually, I knew OM was still alive from his participation in the comments at KSK, but I was laid low when I saw that Thrillhous and all the boys at Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Nachos are back in action. I went over there expecting the same dead site that expired near two years ago just to poach a link, and just about shit my pants when I saw they're back posting and have been for at least a week or so.

Promptly reinstalled in the blogroll where you belong my friends. Welcome back.

What he said...

Yesterday, while stuck in an airport I watched the most inane conversation and "analysis" between Wolf Blitzer and his panel of expert morons, and just shook my head at the garbage they treat as important and the shallowness of the treatment of issues.

It's fucking awful, and if (when?) Obama loses at either stage of this election it will be due less to his abuse at the hands of Hillary Clinton than to the disservice of what poses for the press.

In six minutes, Bill Moyers speaks more truth and explains more fully the complexity of Rev Wright and the whole tempest surrounding him and Obama than the entire 24-hour cable and internet news media could manage in six weeks.

If only we could have more coverage and analysis like this:

Back in the Saddle

Sorry for the unannounced departure...I was out of town and had so many loose ends to tie up before I left, I neglected to mention I'd be gone from blogging...

Not that anyone missed me.

Anyway, my unscientific survey based entirely on yard signs indicates an absolute thumping of Hillary Clinton by Barack Obama in North Carolina. Western North Carolina. As in Asheville and surrounding towns. Which is to say, these results in no way reflect the potential statewide outcome, yet this analysis is every bit as valuable as the bullshit I saw on Sunday morning.

Obama's Catholic Problem

A statistic the Clinton camp (or at least her boosters) keep pointing to regarding electability is her dominance among Catholics over Obama. There are different theories floating around why this is the case, but I think they are all looking too hard, and past the big reason staring them in the face. Here's Sullivan [emphasis added]...

Is the lack of support a function of many Catholics' distance from African-Americans? Or is it Obama's problem, as Deal Hudson counters? Deal says abortion is the issue, but against Clinton? On this, I feel as distant from my fellow Catholics as I do from my fellow gays. It may be that I have long been fascinated by black Catholics in America, their remarkable journey, and have attended a black Catholic church in Washington. Obama's reasoned faith seems to me very compatible with a Catholic sensibility. So I lean with the racial and cultural divide as an explanation.

It's race. As someone who grew up Catholic in Connecticut with my father's family being Irish Catholic from Boston, and my mother's family Polish Catholic from New York, plus my ten years living in and around NYC among the Italian Catholic community, there is no shortage of, nor subtlety to, the racism among Catholics.

Deal Hudson is full of shit (big surprise, right?) and is pretending his church doesn't have a problem with race by blaming regionalism and issues like abortion.

Not even counting the supposed reluctance of Latinos (overwhelmingly Catholic) to support black candidates, there is more than enough old-school racism in these tradional Catholic cities, communities and neighborhoods. Abortion need not enter the discussion...

All of that said, I think this issue diminishes in the general election. Those Catholics supporting Clinton now are in many cases staunch enough Democrats that they'll vote for Obama when the other Democratic option is unavailable.

I hope.

Full Court Press Conference

I am watching it now. Obama is kicking some serious ass. I hope there is video or transcript soon. [UPDATE: Added.]

He is hitting MANY of the things I said below. He is not just "distancing himself" or "throwing Wright under the bus"—he is repudiating what is wrong about Wright and his remarks, and he is doing it gracefully—but he is leaving NO DOUBT that Wright's remarks are antithetical to Obama and everything he stands for.

I don't know how you could parse anything differently out of that, though many will try. It is an issue that Obama surely did not need to deal with, but he made the most out of the opportunity.

Barack Obama did what he needed to do. Will the media and will his opponents?

UPDATE: Sullivan agrees.

Right on Wright?

I haven't watched the the Moyers interview, the Press Club Address OR the NAACP speech, or read the transcripts yet, but from what I have seen and read, this conclusion doesn't seem too far off...

It seems obvious to me that he's doing everything he can to wipe out Obama's candidacy, and I'll tell you why I think it is. I think that people like Reverend Wright -- and I think there are a lot of other race business hustlers out there, by the way, who think this -- really upset that if a black candidate is elected president, that they're going to be somehow diminished in their task, at keeping everybody in their flocks all revved up and angry about the ages old sin of slavery and the ongoing discrimination.

So it appears to me, if you look at Reverend Wright, listen to what he says and analyze it from the context or perspective of what's best for him, which is clearly all he's interested in, what's best for him is that if Obama loses, because then it's easy for him to say, "See, the white power structure doesn't want a black man to rise to the pinnacle of power in the United States of America." It would certainly fuel Reverend Wright's future and continue to help him raise money and keep people whipped up into a frenzy. He's not helpful. Whatever he thinks he's doing, it is not helpful to Barack Obama.

Now, you tell me if you think that this is the Reverend Jeremiah Wright trying to help Barack Obama. "The Rev. Jeremiah Wright said Monday that he will try to change national policy by 'coming after' Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) if he is elected president. The pastor also insisted Obama 'didn't denounce' him and 'didn't distance himself' from Wright's controversial remarks, but 'did what politicians do.' Wright implied Obama still agrees with him by saying: 'He had to distance himself, because he's a politician, from what the media was saying I had said, which was [portrayed as] anti-American. I said to Barack Obama last year, "If you get elected, November the 5th I'm coming after you, because you'll be representing a government whose policies grind under people."'"

Is this helpful to Barack Obama? Once again, he has just destroyed the entire reason for Obama's success, and that is...he's a new kind of politician; he's a politician we haven't seen before; ...and here comes Reverend Wright, (paraphrasing) "Eh, just your average run-of-the-mill politician. He had to say what he said," meaning there's nothing new, nothing unique, nothing distinct about Barack Obama. He's just a politician.

[...] These are not just a little couple of comments taken out of context with Reverend Wright. This is one angry, livid, enraged individual, and Obama's got a serious problem with him now. You may not want to admit it and the Democrats and the superdelegates may not want to admit it publicly, but they've got serious problems here. This guy is undermining the Obama candidacy...

My theory is that it would be far better for Jeremiah Wright for Obama to lose because that will give him a whole new launch pad for his America-is-racist-and-hates-black-people comment, that America is run by "rich white people" who couldn't handle the prospect of a black man being president; and Barack was beaten down by the same forces that have kept blacks down since slavery, blah, blah, blah. The bilge and the drivel that he argues. In all seriousness, folks; if the Democrat Party and if Barack Obama had any say-so whatsoever, this guy would be hibernating. He'd be on a permanent vacation until November. Nobody would be able to find him. He certainly wouldn't be speaking publicly. But he's out there doing it. Now, last week I thought this was a rehabilitation tour to make Reverend Wright a teddy bear and to show the American people that the man in these sermons -- the snippets of sermons that we've seen -- is not who he really is, but that's off the boards now. That's not possible now because he's only exacerbating the problem that he has with the American people. He is a radical. He is anti-American. He is an extremist. He's doing nothing to mollify that and he's not helping Obama in the process.

Rush Limbaugh Show, April 28, 2008

Reverend Wright DID accomplish some unifying with his latest remarks...he has me, Andrew Sullivan and Rush Fucking Limbaugh on the same page.

I need to read and watch more, and flesh out a better conclusion, because god knows I'd love to be wrong—but it sure seems like Wright is a proud, vain man who was hurt by Obama, and is also perhaps threatened by being surpassed by Obama and becoming irrelevant.

Obama again stuck up for Wright this past weekend and said in his FOX News interview (another thing I need to get to) that Wright is a good man misepresented by the events of the last weeks and Wright deserves a chance to defend himself and clear his name.

I don't imagine what Wright is doing is at all what Obama had in mind. Wright is not willing to go quietly, he adding all the wrong context to the infamous snippets, and seems not only willing to, but actually relishing hanging Obama out to dry in the process.

This is not just a headache, it's a fucking nightmare for Obama.

UPDATE: Kevin Drum thinks Hillary should do the right thing and help bail Obama out on this. I want some of what he's smoking...

UPDATE 2: Sullivan tries to see past this...

Fighting Despair

So many readers seem to be feeling it. I have too. But remember what we're dealing with here: last fall, no one gave Obama a chance. It was always a very long shot. When I wrote that Obama piece, Clinton was ahead by at least 20 points and it wasn't budging a jot. Every pundit also expected the classic Clinton-Giuliani set-up for 2008: the perfect boomer red-blue battle. It didn't happen. The Republicans, from a smaller and demoralized base, gave us McCain. And the Clintons have lost the mathematical chance of winning the nomination by any fair means. The change has already happened.

Obama is a freshman senator; he is 46 years old; he is African-American; he is a liberal - even if he is very gifted in talking to conservatives. He has taken on the biggest brand and machine in American politics, the Clintons, and won. If you didn't think this would be an uphill struggle, you've been deluded. Of course, race will not go away; it will come back again and again and again. Of course, generational resistance will not go away: Obama is a big leap for the over 50s for all sorts of reasons. Of course, the usual Rovian tactics will be used against him - brutally. He does represent real change - culturally, politically, and in terms of global politics. Politicians who represent real change do not win easily; they usually require a real crisis to rise. That's how RFK and MLK emerged - in crisis, after being smeared (sometimes with a grain of truth) and finally assassinated. That's how Reagan and Thatcher emerged. We forget how their chances were considered flimsy for so long.

Obama is still in this; and the Wright fiasco gives him a chance to remove this cloud and address it again. He has the most votes, the most states, the most money, the most new voters and the most delegates and the most Senators on his side. This is no time for a failure of nerve - on the part of the Obama team or his supporters.

The only way past this is through it. And it's not just up to Obama; it's up to those of us who see him as a vehicle for real change.

Obama has scheduled a press conference, let's see what happens.

In a fucking serious world with a legitimate press and informed voters, he'd be able to say, simply:

"This guy doesn't speak for me, my campaign or what I believe in. I have stated my disagreement with his comments in the past, and I disagree with what he said again yesterday. Reverend Wright is wrong. His comments are wrong, and they are divisive. It's not helpful to white OR black America, or trying to create ONE America. Reverend Wright and his beliefs represent just another example of the divisiveness of the past, and it is what I am trying to move us past."

"I attended the fantastic ministry and community that Reverend Wright and thousdands of Chicagoans helped to build, and I will not abandon my church. Nor will I throw the Reverend to the wolves. HE is a man that has done good things in his life and his work, and those will not be undone by this, but he seems content to take the dialogue on race in a different, and destructive, direction.

I am hoping to reach a crossroads and to bring this country together on a journey to something better. It appears Reverend Wright is searching for the fork in the road. He is on a different path and it will not cross mine again. Thank you. Period. The end.

Now, how can you dumb motherfuckers ignore what I just said, and how many different ways can you all ask the same stupid-ass questions."

Palette Cleanser

It's Raining Kitchen Sinks

I hope we can stop hearing about Barack Obama enjoying some kind of immunity in the media now, because it's clear that honeymoon is over and he is taking fire from ALL sides now.

• McCain is go after him with bullshit about Rev. Wright, and being the "candidate of Hamas."...

• Hillary's calling him chicken for refusing to participate in a moderator-less debate where she'll be even more free to make random mentions of Hamas and Farrakan...

• Newsweek's cover feature is on Obama's "elite problem" and their cover uses the fucking arugula vs. beer...didn't I explain this shit in my open letter to the media?

• And now Reverend Wright has returned Obama's loyalty by fucking him over something fierce...It's now time for Obama to Sister Souljah the hell out of that guy. This is a HUGE moment that I think could save or bury his campaign. It should be a non-issue, but it seems clear his opponents and the media have decided to define him on this.

This is a perfect storm of bullshit that really does scare the shit out of me coming right before two big primaries.

I'm too swamped to blog now, more to come soon...

Polls Are Now Open Closed

MoveOn.org, those dirty fucking hippies, are having another ad contest. This time it's "Obama in 30 Seconds." Submissions are closed, and voting/rating is open now closed.

Here is Lee Stranahan's entry, it's pretty good.

And I like this one even more.

NOTE: I removed the embedded videos and put links instead. The videos played automatically and simultaneously and were getting annoying...but click through and check them out. Also, I added Stranahan's blog to the roll.

I had started this post last Tuesday, and didn't realize how short the time to vote was...finalists will be announced tomorrow (4/29), I'd expect to see both of these among them.

Sunday Brunch Link Buffet

"BARBIE! WATCH OUT—"
These 1/18 scale car wrecks with real bonsai trees are awesome. As a kid, if my AMT models weren't up to snuff, I would often take a lighter to soften the plastic and do a rudimentary version of this. But these "wrecks," when combined with a real miniature tree, are spectacular. I see a new post-toddler hobby in my future...

IF TOONS WERE REAL
Pixeloo—A Photoshop expert takes cartoon characters and adds real skin and hair textures to create riveting, yet somewhat disturbing, likenesses of a "real" Homer Simpson, a Jessica Rabbit (using Angelina Jolie, Kate Walsh and Alyson Hannigan for reference) and others...

HE'S WATCHING...
CeilingCat. Ridiculous and hilarious.

BLACK AND WHITE AND RED ALL OVER
Teaser trailer (video here) and poster art for the upcoming Frank Miller ("300," "Sin City")-written and -directed "The Spirit." Looks good.

The Family Bed

Don't piss me off, L.A. Times...

Parents warned about sleeping with infants
L.A. County officials says the increasingly popular practice known as 'co-sleeping' can have tragic consequences.
By Rong-Gong Lin II, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer | April 24, 2008

[link] Los Angeles County officials Wednesday urged parents to avoid the increasingly popular practice of sleeping in the same bed as their infant children, calling the practice a "potentially lethal act."

County statistics released Wednesday show that 44 infants died after they slept next to an adult in 2006, a 76% increase over the previous year. It was the county's highest number of deaths ever associated with "co-sleeping," the practice of sleeping in the same bed, couch or chair with an infant.

And of course there's always the tragic example given...

Patricia Ploehn, director of the county Department of Children and Family Services, recalled a case in 2006 in which a father sitting on a chair fell asleep with his infant child sleeping on his chest; he awoke to find that the infant had slipped in between the armrest and seat cushion and died.

Waitasec—that's not "co-sleeping." That's a dad falling asleep in a chair and dropping his baby. Claiming that's "co-sleeping" like saying a guy who falls asleep smoking and lights his chair on fire and burns to death was "smoke-sleeping."

We co-sleep. Carefully. Mrs F sleeps with Baby on a mattress on the floor, with minimal extra pillows, etc. I sleep in the guest room because I'm too sound of a sleeper and would be a potential threat to a newborn—but mostly because I snore.

Kid often hops into my bed during the night and so does the dog. I think it's great. There's not a dependence—Kid can sleep completely through the night in any bed, and falls asleep on her own. There's a parent/child affection and bond I enjoy and value, and so does she.

The fact that this is so fucking "controversial" is an uptight, cultural issue in this country. It's totally natural, and common everywhere else in the world.

What is not mentioned in those statistics is any kind of specifics—how many involved drugs or alcohol? Unsafe practices? Falls? Those numbers collect every infant/toddler death that occured with a sleeping adult, of which proper co-sleeping is probably a small percentage, and the death, while tragic, was likely unrelated.

This is bullshit journalism, and just a variation of the amber alert parent paranoia-inducing garbage filling the media.

“Talkin’ ’bout my generation”

From a 27-year-old reader at Andrew Sullivan's. A briliant observation, and scathing indictment of the yuppie/boomer generation and how it relates to Obama v. Clinton.

[...] It's difficult and often hyperbolic to define a generation's attitudes toward anything, let alone something as complex as voting behavior. But, I do believe this election is being driven by an Obama voting bloc that, to a certain extent, blames the anxieties that I mentioned above on our parent's generation.

No, not on our parents directly, since how could you not express affection for such an over-indulgent group of ex-hippies, but on their lack of self-discipline. They were the generation that got their wish in the 1960s with John F. Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy. Who saw the promise of a new politics embodied in both men, and had the electoral power through sheer demographics to propel them to what would have been successful presidencies.

The promise was cut short, but that generation of baby boomers lived on as the definitive political and economic force in American politics. In the late 60s and early 70s they expressed their social power through a burgeoning cultural and political revolution. As the 70s became the 80s they began to grow into their prime earning potential, demanding tax cuts and beginning a spending spree that would fuel almost all of the economic growth of the 1990s. They were narcissistic and short-sighted; all too willing to view an ascendant, powerful America as their personal reward for being born at the right time and place...

[...] Now that it appears we've reached the limit of unrestrained consumption, they appear more than willing to take their social security checks and medicaid benefits and ride into the sunset, leaving in their wake a bankrupt, increasingly desparate younger generation. They even have the gall to claim that we're the generation of narcissists! In my mind, the struggle between Clinton and Obama lays bare this generational conflict...

This is excellent stuff, and I cannot agree more with it. The Clintons in particular are crystalline examples of this theory. They started out their journey in the right place. They got where they wanted to go. They had a chance to make their mark, but lost their way, and seemed to forget why they originally set out on the trip. And now they refuse to give up the driver's seat OR ask for directions even though they are now wandering in circles. To them it's not possible that anyone else can drive or knows where to go.

[...] The greatest dogwhistle of the Obama campaign so far is his ability to lay out this urgency to our generation. Viewed in this light, the only thing Obama has to tell me about yesterday's election is that Pennsylanvia has the second oldest population in the country. After hearing that fact, I get it. He was never going to win.

Another good point. It's the one thing I don't hear any "experts acknowledging regarding Clinton's victory. People are blaming Obama's gaffes or a failure to connect to blue collar workers, but the reality is he gained on Clinton in every possible demographic compared to Ohio. The ONLY place she is dependably beating him now is among older voters.

Can the younger generation seize the moment and deliver?

Worst. Headline. Ever.

Penis theft panic hits city

By Joe Bavier Wed Apr 23, 1:07 PM ET

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.

Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.

Another reason to skip that holiday in the Congo...

Total Package

Awesome.

It's a mere sidebar to the big issues, but I think it matters. It's more than just Barack Obama as the President. If he wins, there is so much more brought to the table than the just the candidate and his policies.

Just the fact that there'll be little kids running the halls is great enough, but seriously...look at what that First Family represents.

Change. Hope. Progress.

Indeed.

Nothing against HRC (for a moment), but an eight-years-older pic of her and Bill minus Chelsea just ain't the same...

[h/t: Shakes]

Back To The Future

Hillary's path to the nomination...

No Change You Can Believe In

Well, Hillary wins Pennsylvania, and the closest margin I've seen with 98% reporting is 52-46, with most putting it at 8 to 10 points.

It's a clear enough win that she can "claim" she's got the momentum, but that's a joke—Obama shaved 20 points off Clinton's 26-point advantage from six weeks ago. In her speech, Clinton claimed the "tide is turning." No, Hillary, it is still washing your ass out to sea, you've just managed to hang on to the pier a little longer...you're almost out of pilings, and you have no way to get back to shore.

It would have been nice for Obama to notch an upset here and break the back of Clinton's campaign, but alas we are where we were yesterday for at least a few more weeks. She made no significant gains in popular vote OR delegates (she looks to have picked up 10-12 delegates while she trails by 150+), so she just continues to stall the inevitable.

She needed a blowout, and she didn't get it. Another 158 delegates are off the table, and the lead remains insurmountable—in a sense, it's a "hold" for Obama.

UPDATE: John Cole puts it a bit more colorfully...

Hillary’s campaign now seems to boil down to her playing the role of Lucy, with little more than catcalls that Obama “can not close the deal.” “Sure,” she seems to say, “he has kicked my ass in every measurable metric this campaign, but why, oh why can he just not finish me off? Clearly that means you should make me the nominee.”

Regardless, Hillary’s vanity campaign will continue on, trailing in delegates, trailing in the popular vote, trailing in enthusiasm and money, but not lacking in the firm resolve that only Hillary can save us all from our selves. I can not tell you how much I am looking forward to more Clintonian triangulation and McCain worship and plans to nuke Iran over the next two weeks as we wait for the super-delegates and the voters of North Carolina and Indiana to break out the wreath of garlic and wooden stakes so we can finally be rid of this menace.

Pretty much.

Children at Play. Or Not.

I gotta put a plug in for a special that Mrs F saved from PBS that I watched last week, "Where Do Children Play?"

Fascinating stuff.

Filmed here in Michigan: in Detroit, rural Michigan and literally right down the street here in Ann Arbor, this special looks at how kids are playing—or not playing—and their relationship with nature, the outdoors and each other...

The environment/situation that comes across worst, and the one that presented with only the evidence in this show that I would chose last for my kids? The urban grit of Southwest Detroit? The isolation of Beaver Island? Nope. The supposed "ideal" of Ann Arbor—the tree-lined streets of our very own Old West Side, where the highly-regarded neighborhood elementary school is mere blocks away for every student, yet almost NONE of them walk to school. The town where every damn kid gets carted around in minivans from scheduled activity to scheduled activity, and no one goes to the playground.

We gotta get the hell out of here...

Barbie's Figure Sags

I'll take my good news where I can get it...

Barbie Sales Fall; Mattel Reports $45M Loss
No. 1 toymaker Mattel lost more than $45 million in the recent quarter. Recalls are part of the problem, but also, global sales of Mattel's iconic Barbie doll aren't growing. In the U.S., Barbie sales even fell by 12 percent.

I'm not rooting for Mattel to fail, but I wouldn't mind seeing Barbie fall by the wayside...

The Furious Girls are 100% Barbie-free. We strive for more natural, imaginative toys wherever we can. My Little Ponies™ seem to be the necessary evil/compromise, but at least they won't give the girls self-esteem issues.

Oh, and Mattel? You might try less lead in your toys too. That'll help the bottom line.