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On Twitter Dave Winer mentioned that Obama was calling Pennsylvanians’ - and the nation’s - attention to the fact that it’s true that rural American people are angry and bitter as a result of patiently waiting 25 years for politicians they elect to stop selling them out and help them get their lives and their jobs back. I guess Obama became one of my heroes twice this weekend, because he told a really uncomfortable truth about American politics and refused to back off it. Then he admitted he was wrong for having made a poor choice of words when he originally made the statement.

Actually admitted he was wrong and apologized. I thought I was going to faint.

It seems like Hillary jumped as hard as she did onto the bandwagon playing the ‘Obama has made a mistake let’s crucify him’, song, because she’s made some pretty big mistakes of her own lately. What are those mistakes? Obama tells it much better than I can. Watch out for him saying at a bit after minute 4 that Hillary is making it sound like she’s Annie Oakley . . .

More in AP article and at DailyKos

Carl Bernstein wrote a book about Hillary Clinton, and this week he published an article about her presidential campaign. Below are a couple of paragraphs from the article. It’s well worth reading.

It happens that Mark Penn, the campaign manager Hillary recently fired, is the brother of a guy who was my physician for a long time. Deane Penn retired from practice maybe two years ago, but for many years I knew him as a thoroughly decent person, a committed activist in the Jewish community and an excellent doctor. Dr. Penn always referred to his brother’s work as one of the nation’s major pollsters, with great pride.

The Clinton folks asserted to donors and reporters alike that this second “shake-up” in eight weeks at the very top of the campaign apparat represents some kind of great electoral moment, an opportunity for Hillary to state her case “more positively,” as if the negative approach had been forced on her; the beginning of yet another “turnaround” as if Penn, rather than Hillary (and Bill), has been the big problem. As if Penn were not an appendage of his two patrons, as if he were some kind of independent contractor twisting the candidate’s arm to do what comes unnaturally to her. The willingness of so much of the press, sensitized to the Clintons’ off-center complaints about one-sided coverage, to buy into this line is stunning.

In fact, the demotion of Penn –- like the departure of Hillary’s acolyte Patty Solis Doyle as campaign manager –- is a confession that, for all her claims of “experience” and leadership abilities, Hillary Clinton has now presided over two disastrous national enterprises, the most important professional undertakings of her adult life, both of which she began with ample wind at her back: the healthcare reform of her husband’s presidency, and now her own campaign for the White House. These two failures -– and the demonizing of her opponents in both instances –- may be the best indication of the kind of President she would be, especially when confronted (inevitably) by unanticipated difficulty and/or entrenched opposition to her ideas and programs.

It is exactly under such circumstances that she usually resorts to the worst excesses that mark her in full warrior-mode — and all its scorched-earth, truth-be-damned manifestations. Bosnia, anyone? Smearing the women involved (or even thought to be involved) sexually with her husband.
Responding to Barack Obama with the same mindset, disdain, and arsenal as she did Karl Rove and Lee Atwater, as if Obama’s politics and methodologies were as mendacious and vicious as theirs–and her own. Tax information kept secret (in 1992 to hide her profits from trading in cattle futures; in 2008 to shield the identities of Bill’s foreign clients.) A campaign that openly boasts of throwing “the kitchen sink” at her opponent.

Seton Hall Law School’s Center for Social Justice and Lowenstein Sandler, PC, filed suit today in federal court, alleging that federal law enforcement officials violated the ten victims’ constitutional privacy and due process rights under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments by entering their homes without consent or a judicial warrant during pre-dawn “raids.”

. . . immigration agents forced their way into each plaintiff’s home in the early hours of the morning without a judicial warrant or the occupants’ consent. Most of the plaintiffs were awakened by loud pounding on their doors and answered the door, fearing an emergency. ICE agents subsequently either lied about their identity or purpose to gain entry, or simply shoved their way into the home.  During each raid the agents swept through the house and, displaying guns, rounded up all the residents for questioning. In some cases they ordered children out of their beds, shouted obscenities, shoved guns into residents’ chests, and forbade detained individuals from calling their lawyers.  In at least half the raids, the officers purported to be searching for a person who did not even live at the address raided.

The complaint asserts that these practices are not isolated violations, but are examples of a clear modus operandi typical of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) program called “Operation Return to Sender.”  Under this program, the complaint alleges, ICE agents have been ordered to meet dramatically increased immigrant arrest quotas using grossly outdated address information and without having been trained on lawful procedures.

. . . According to the complaint, the constitutional violations did not cease once agents had entered the homes.  For example, plaintiff Maria Argueta, a legal resident, was arrested in her home at 4:30 in the morning and detained for 24 hours without food or water; the agents lied to get into her home then refused to even to look at her immigration papers proving her status.

Jump to full Sun Herald article.

Governor Corzine wants to delete the state’s Department of Agriculture. The role of the Department of Environmental Protection - which would be the new liaison for farmers under Corzine’s plan - doesn’t include caring for the needs of farms and farmers. But NJ is The Garden State! We need our farms, and what’s more, without them NJ will quickly turn into a cultural desert of mini-McMansions and strip malls. What a waste!

Robert Von Thun Jr., who grows vegetables, fruit and flowers on his South Brunswick farm, said farmers understand the need to streamline state government, but contends the Agriculture Department already runs efficiently.

The Agriculture Department oversees soil and water conservation, storm water and erosion, school nutrition programs, animal health, food safety, export markets, farmland preservation and commodity promotion.

New Jersey farms generate about $924 million per year and employ about 562,000 people, or nearly 12 percent of the state’s jobs.

. . . Mary Jo Herbert, of the Hopewell Heritage Farm, said the cut would make only a small dent in the state’s $33 billion budget but “would send the worst kind of signal.”

“I am a third-generation farmer and I, perhaps naively, believed that our state government was committed to preserving our farming heritage,” Herbert said.

Jump to North Jersey article.

Since last October, Singulair allergy and asthma medication labels have warned that the drug is linked to, “suicidal thinking and behaviour.” The Wall Street Journal reports:

Singulair, made by Merck & Co., is approved to treat asthma and allergy symptoms such as sneezing and stuffy noses, as well as to prevent exercise-induced asthma. The FDA said in a so-called early communication that it is reviewing postmarketing reports of behavior and mood changes, suicidal thoughts and actions, and actual suicides by patients who took Singulair. The regulator also asked Merck to look at its own database for signs of trouble.

Early communications are a recently developed tool the FDA uses to tell consumers and health-care professionals that the agency is looking into a particular safety concern but that it hasn’t reached any conclusions.

Jump to full WSJ article.

Your tax dollars are still subsidizing Wal-Mart’s health care crisis. Your good jobs are still being shipped overseas so Wal-Mart can import over 70% of its goods from communist China. Your neighbors are still earning poverty-level Wal-Mart wages so America’s richest family can line their pockets with Wal-Mart’s $12 billion in profits.

Are you living better yet?

If you’re not, visit Wake Up Walmart and have a look at their suggestions for what you can do about it.

Hello Great American Public. I would like to introduce you to my wife of 25 years, on whom I’ve cheated for at least 17 of those years. Or is that 18? Well, no matter. The point is, that she never knew. And I didn’t cheat on her with anyone worth while. I didn’t have sex with one woman that I could have loved. All of them were nameless prostitutes.
 
Amazing figures with fantastic faces, a sense of style that’s out of this world, legs that never end and all of them had bazongas out to . . . look . . . here [puts hands about a foot in front of his chest]. But no names. And no love. Honestly, I didn’t even sleep with them. We “took care of business,” and then just shook hands and said goodbye.  

So maybe cheating isn’t exactly the right term. You have to love the other person for extramarital sex to be technically considered cheating, you know.
 
Well, anyway. As I was saying, here’s my lovely wife. I’m sorry for almost cheating on you, sweetheart. You forgive me, don’t you. Now, there, shake your head up and down. Show the Great American Public we’re not afraid of their scrutiny, because we haven’t really done anything wrong.  

Sure, Susan could have worn sexier clothes in public - and private. She could have left the children in the care of their nanny more often and helped me take my mind off of work in that special way that only real women can. Like women who get paid do. Sure, Susan could have used her mouth a little more creatively (you know what I mean).

But, what can I tell you, she’s my wife. I love her, and I’m sorry I didn’t act according to my standards. Say hello to the camera, honey, all of America is watching this apology.  

Smile! There you are. Good girl!  

In a comment on this article fenria14 wrote:

Gas stations sell a gallon of gasoline based on standard weight at a temp of 60 degrees F. As the temp rises, gasoline starts to evaporate into it’s vapor form, so if you’re buying a gallon of gas when it’s 80 degrees F outside, you’re paying for a full gallon but are instead getting less than a gallon of gas and gas vapor.

. . . if you live anywhere it regularly gets over 60 degrees F, (most of the US), you’ll get more for your money buying your gas at night or in the early morning when it’s close to 60 degrees F.

A NY Times article reports that Steve Marshall does not understand “how Web sites owned by a British national operating via a Spanish travel agency can be affected by U.S. law.” Worse, he said, “these days not even a judge is required for the U.S. government to censor online materials …” Steve Marshall lives in Spain, and operates a travel agency which serves a European clientele and books vacation trips to locations including Cuba.

In October, about 80 of his Web sites stopped working, thanks to the United States government. …

It turned out, though, that Mr. Marshall’s Web sites had been put on a Treasury Department blacklist and, as a consequence, his American domain name registrar, eNom Inc., had disabled them …

In effect, Mr. Marshall said, eNom has taken his property and interfered with his business. He has slowly rebuilt his Web business over the last several months, and now many of the same sites operate with the suffix .net rather than .com, through a European registrar. His servers, he said, have been in the Bahamas all along.

Mr. Marshall said he did not understand “how Web sites owned by a British national operating via a Spanish travel agency can be affected by U.S. law.” Worse, he said, “these days not even a judge is required for the U.S. government to censor online materials …

Jump to full New York Times article.

Thursday, 01/03/08
Data loss shakes voter trust. Facility guarded half-time on weekends

By MICHAEL CASS, Staff Writer

The Metro Nashville building from which thieves stole two computers containing sensitive voter data does not have security guards on duty for half of the day on weekends, and it has no alarm system or video surveillance.

The Metro Office Building on Second Avenue South has had one guard on duty 12 hours a day on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays for about 10 years, said Velvet Hunter, Metro General Services’ assistant director for administration. She declined to specify the hours, citing concerns that publicity could make the facility more vulnerable.

Hunter said city officials decide how to secure buildings based on “a risk assessment of all factors.” She said the Metro Office Building, which is on Second Avenue South near Howard School Office Building, had never been burglarized until the laptops were stolen around Christmas.

But the area around the building, which is just off Interstate 40, has had problems with crime. Four homicides were committed within a half-mile of the facility in 2007, and seven homicides within a mile of it, according to a Tennessean analysis of Metro police data.

The two Dell Latitude laptops, one of which needed repairs, contained Social Security numbers for 337,000 voters. Police said Wednesday that a computer router also stolen in the break-in at the Davidson County Election Commission offices “went offline” at 9:45 p.m. Dec. 24.

Jump to full Tennesean article