The Green Fairy

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BibliOdyssey

This guy collects scanned artwork from old books that he finds online and compiles them on his blog. Very cool stuff. Here's one example (read the strange copy toward the bottom):

Poem Of The Day

From one of my favorites, Pablo Neruda.

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

Remember The Zimmers?

I love this video!

Another One Down

Looks like Obama took another state that doesn't matter. Why does he waste our time?

Another State That Doesn't Count

Right on cue we learn that Wyoming which is voting today doesn't count. (See here for others.) At this rate, I figure maybe, hmmm, 12 states really matter in the Clinton universe. Kos has the latest:

More insults from Camp Clinton
And here we go again.

One Clinton aide yesterday derided Mr Obama’s victories in "boutique" caucus states rather than the hardscrabble terrain of the rustbelt, saying: "Obama has won the small caucus states with the latte-sipping crowd. They don’t need a president, they need a feeling."

Really, why don't Clinton and McCain get a room already? They're all using the same arguments. Even if those arguments are so darn stupid.

The rust belt is (from west to east) the states bordering the great lakes: Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. Of those states that have had a real contest, Obama won two (WI and IL), Clinton won two (OH, NY), IN and PA is pending, and MI is still trying to figure out how to have a real contest. Not exactly dominant. […]

We have more at stake this fall than the presidency, and we have a candidate that is running nationwide and showing proper deference and respect for our great United States of America, and we have another that has given the middle finger to much of the country.

That's why I've become an enthusiastic Obama supporter after being detached for most of this race. Because I'm looking to the candidate who is building a national party, not the one that continues to disrespect most of it.

Astronomy Picture Of The Day

What It Is: The striking spiral galaxy M104 is famous for its nearly edge-on profile featuring a broad ring of obscuring dust. Seen in silhouette against a bright bulge of stars, the swath of cosmic dust lanes lends a hat-like appearance to the galaxy in optical images suggesting the more popular moniker, The Sombrero Galaxy. Here, Hubble Space Telescope archival image data has been reprocessed to create this alternative look at the well-known galaxy. The newly developed processing improves the visibility of details otherwise lost in overwhelming glare, in this case allowing features of the galaxy's dust lanes to be followed well into the bright central region. About 50,000 light-years across and 28 million light-years away, M104 is one of the largest galaxies at the southern edge of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster.

Will. Not. Get. My. Vote.

As long as Hillary is intent on trashing the Democratic party's chance come November, I see no reason I should vote for her. Perhaps she should join Lieberman and just start stumping for McCain.

Figuring Out Which States Count

I can't wait to see what they have to say about Oregon when they get their asses handed to them here.

How Many States Has the Clinton Campaign Dissed?
"Could we possibly have a nominee who hasn’t won any of the significant states — outside of Illinois? That raises some serious questions about Sen. Obama."                 - Mark Penn

"I was shocked when I learned Iowa and Mississippi have never elected a woman governor, senator or member of Congress," Clinton told the paper. "There has got to be something at work here. How can Iowa be ranked with Mississippi? That's not the quality. That's not the communitarianism, that's not the openness I see in Iowa."
- Hillary Clinton

"It’s not a factor," was how Clinton dismissed Obama victories in Maine, Nebraska, Louisiana, Virgin Islands and Washington state in an interview with WJLA and Politico on Monday. - Hillary Clinton

"You know, I know that there are three things, when you think about electability. Number one, I've been winning the big states we have to win.

"With all due respect, unless there's a tsunami change in America, we're never going to carry Alaska, North Dakota, Idaho. It's just not going to happen. But we have to carry the states that I'm carrying, the primary states, the states that really have to be in the winning Democratic column."- Hillary Clinton

"The caucuses aren’t good for her [Hillary Clinton]. They disproportionately favor upper-income voters who, who, don’t really need a president but feel like they need a change." - Bill Clinton

She said she never expected to do well in any of those contests, even though she had been favored to win Maine. Clinton repeated her criticism that the caucus system is undemocratic and caters mostly to party activists.

As for Louisiana, "You had a very strong and very proud African- American electorate, which I totally respect and understand," Clinton said.

She noted that the states she won on Super Tuesday were all states Democrats must win to succeed in the general election. Many of the states Obama won that night, such as Alaska and North Dakota, would not be competitive for Democrats next November, she said. - Hillary Clinton

"I think for superdelegates, the quality of where the win comes from should matter in terms of making a judgment about who might be the best general election candidate." —Mark Penn, Clinton’s senior campaign adviser

"I’m telling donors and supporters: Don’t be overly concerned about what goes on in the remainder of the month of February because these are not states teed up well for us."  - Hassan Nemazee, national finance chair

Clinton also told about 100 people in Charleston that he was proud of the Democratic Party for having a woman and a black candidate and he understands why Obama is drawing support among blacks, who may comprise up to half of Saturday's turnout.

"As far as I can tell, neither Senator Obama nor Hillary have lost votes because of their race or gender," he said. "They are getting votes, to be sure, because of their race or gender — that's why people tell me Hillary doesn't have a chance of winning here."  - Bill Clinton

"Superdelegates are not second-class delegates. The real second-class delegates are the delegates that are picked in red-state caucuses that are never going to vote Democratic."  - Joel Ferguson, Michigan campaign co-chair

"It is highly unlikely we will win Alaska or North Dakota or Idaho or Nebraska," she said, naming several of Obama's red state wins. "But we have to win Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Florida, Michigan ... And we've got to be competitive in places like Texas, Missouri and Oklahoma."
- Hillary Clinton

"Sen. Obama, in contrast, won with large margins in Alabama and Georgia, two states that have been in the Republican column in the last two elections. He also won with large margins in a string of caucus states with comparatively fewer voters - Alaska, Idaho, Utah, and Kansas - and have also been in the Republican column. Of course, he won his home state."  - Mark Penn

"I agree he’s done well in those caucus states — we didn’t make as much of an effort as we probably should have. But those states simply are not going to vote this year for a Democratic president." - Harold Ickes

Kamikaze Mission II

Gary Hart weighs in on Sen. Clinton's lovely scorched-earth tactics.

Breaking the Final Rule
It will come as a surprise to many people that there are rules in politics. Most of those rules are unwritten and are based on common understandings, acceptable practices, and the best interest of the political party a candidate seeks to lead. One of those rules is this: Do not provide ammunition to the opposition party that can be used to destroy your party's nominee. This is a hyper-truth where the presidential contest is concerned.

By saying that only she and John McCain are qualified to lead the country, particularly in times of crisis, Hillary Clinton has broken that rule, severely damaged the Democratic candidate who may well be the party's nominee, and, perhaps most ominously, revealed the unlimited lengths to which she will go to achieve power. She has essentially said that the Democratic party deserves to lose unless it nominates her. […]

Senator Obama is right to say the issue is judgment not years in Washington. If Mrs. Clinton loses the nomination, her failure will be traced to the date she voted to empower George W. Bush to invade Iraq. That is not the kind of judgment, or wisdom, required by the leader answering the phone in the night. For her now to claim that Senator Obama is not qualified to answer the crisis phone is the height of irony if not chutzpah, and calls into question whether her primary loyalty is to the Democratic party and the nation or to her own ambition.

Emphasis mine.

Raison D'amour

As if we needed another reason to love the French.

French women 'are the sexual predators now'
French women are becoming increasingly assertive in their sexual habits…according to one of the most comprehensive surveys of the nation's love lives. 

Women now have more than twice as many partners as they did in the 1970s, according to the study by the French Aids research agency, which is backed by the government. […]

"The good old dichotomy (male predators, females patiently awaiting the warrior's return in front of the cave entrance) is in big trouble", said Le Nouvel Observateur.

Female sexual emancipation has been a hot topic in France ever since President Nicolas Sarkozy met Carla Bruni, the Italian model and singer. The couple married last month.

Ms Bruni recently declared monogamy "terribly boring" and spoke in relaxed fashion about her numerous past conquests, including Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton.

"I am a tamer [of men], a cat, an Italian", she told Le Figaro last year. "I am faithful... to myself. I am monogamous from time to time but I prefer polygamy and polyandry [its female equivalent]."

Kamikaze Mission

I'm thinking either she figures she really does stand an outside chance of winning nomination by virtue of being the last candidate standing. Or she just doesn't care about the health of the party or the country and is willing to bloody up Obama for the general election allowing McCain to get in and she can run again in 2012. Here's Jonathan Chait's take at The New Republic:

Hillary Clinton, Fratricidal Maniac
Clinton's path to the nomination is pretty repulsive. She isn't going to win at the polls. Barack Obama has a lead of 144 pledged delegates. That may not sound like a lot in a 4,000-delegate race, but it is. Clinton's Ohio win reduced that total by only nine. She would need 15 more Ohios to pull even with Obama. She isn't going to do much to dent, let alone eliminate, his lead. […]

Clinton's path to the nomination, then, involves the following steps: kneecap an eloquent, inspiring, reform-minded young leader who happens to be the first serious African American presidential candidate (meanwhile cementing her own reputation for Nixonian ruthlessness) and then win a contested convention by persuading party elites to override the results at the polls. The plan may also involve trying to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations, after having explicitly agreed that the results would not count toward delegate totals. Oh, and her campaign has periodically hinted that some of Obama's elected delegates might break off and support her. I don't think she'd be in a position to defeat Hitler's dog in November, let alone a popular war hero.

Some Clinton supporters, like my friend (and historian) David Greenberg, have been assuring us that lengthy primary fights go on all the time and that the winner doesn't necessarily suffer a mortal wound in the process. But Clinton's kamikaze mission is likely to be unusually damaging. Not only is the opportunity cost--to wrap up the nomination, and spend John McCain into the ground for four months--uniquely high, but the venue could not be less convenient. Pennsylvania is a swing state that Democrats will almost certainly need to win in November, and Clinton will spend seven weeks and millions of dollars there making the case that Obama is unfit to set foot in the White House. You couldn't create a more damaging scenario if you tried.

What Are They Hiding? II

I've got a feeling this is going to be a very multi multi-part series. Here's the latest from USA Today.

Clinton-papers release blocked
LITTLE ROCK — Federal archivists at the Clinton Presidential Library are blocking the release of hundreds of pages of White House papers on pardons that the former president approved, including clemency for fugitive commodities trader Marc Rich.

The archivists' decision, based on guidance provided by Bill Clinton that restricts the disclosure of advice he received from aides, prevents public scrutiny of documents that would shed light on how he decided which pardons to approve from among hundreds of requests. […]

Former president Clinton issued 140 pardons on his last day in office, including several to controversial figures, such as commodities trader Rich, then a fugitive on tax evasion charges. Rich's ex-wife, Denise, contributed $2,000 in 1999 to Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign; $5,000 to a related political action committee; and $450,000 to a fund set up to build the Clinton library.

The president also pardoned two men who each paid Sen. Clinton's brother, Hugh Rodham, about $200,000 to lobby the White House for pardons — one for a drug conviction and one for mail fraud and perjury convictions, according to a 2002 report by the House committee on government reform. After the payments came to light, Bill Clinton issued a statement: "Neither Hillary nor I had any knowledge of such payments," the report said.

Department Of The Obvious

“Every time she has the option to choose secrecy over openness, she chooses secrecy.” —David Plouffe

But why shouldn't she when secrecy works so well for her. Like that time in '93 when she spearheaded the healthcare effort, right? 

What Are They Hiding Anyway?

Why won't the Cheneys–er–the Clintons release those tax returns?

Bill Clinton profits from company tied to felon, China
The spring before his wife began her White House campaign, former President Bill Clinton earned $700,000 for his foundation by selling stock that he had been given from an Internet search company that was co-founded by a convicted felon and backed by the Chinese government, public records show.

Mr. Clinton had gotten the nonpublicly traded stock from Accoona Corp. back in 2004 as a gift for giving a speech at a company event. He landed the windfall by selling the 200,000 shares to an undisclosed buyer in May 2006, commanding $3.50 a share at a time when the company was reporting millions of dollars of losses, according to interviews.

Then there's this:

Bill Clinton's Kazakhstan Money
Today, the New York Times reports that Bill Clinton flew to Kazakhstan in 2005 on a private jet of Candadian financier who wanted to achieve a mining contract for extensive amounts or recently discovered uranium. The two men met with the President of Kazakhstan, who has quashed any political dissent in that country; he is an absolutist. The Canadian achieves the contract. In return, the Canadian makes a $31.3 Million donation to the Bill Clinton charitable foundation. Info just made public in December, 2007. The initial Clinton response is that there is no connection between the trip and the donation.

I Didn't Get The Memo, Either

I hesitate to quote from former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan, but you know what they say about stopped clocks. And she nails it here:

One Obama supporter on TheRoot.com apparently didn't get the memo. That is the great threat to the Clintons, the number of young and independent Democrats who haven't received the memo about how Democrats speak of the Clintons. Writer Mark Q. Sawyer: "If Obama won't hit back, I will. Why aren't we talking about impeachment, Whitewater and Osama?"

What do I think is the biggest reason Mrs. Clinton came back? She kept her own spirits up to the point of denial and worked it, hard, every day. She is hardy, resilient, tough. She is a train on a track, an Iron Horse. But we must not become carried away with generosity. The very qualities that impress us are the qualities that will make her a painful president. She does not care what you think, she will have what she wants, she will not do the feints, pivots and backoffs that presidents must. She is neither nimble nor agile, and she knows best. She will wear a great nation down.

In any case the Clinton campaign, which has always been more vicious than clever, this week did a very clever thing. They pre-empted any criticism of past scandals by pushing a Democratic Party button called . . . the Monica story. Mr. Obama is "imitating Ken Starr" by speaking of Mrs. Clinton's record, said Howard Wolfson. But Ken Starr documented malfeasance. Mr. Obama can't even mention it. […]

I end with a deadly, deadpan prediction from Christopher Hitchens. Hillary is the next president… because, "there's something horrible and undefeatable about people who have no life except the worship of power . . . people who don't want the meeting to end, the people who just are unstoppable, who only have one focus, no humanity, no character, nothing but the worship of money and power. They win in the end."

It was like Claude Rains summing up the meaning of everything in the film "Lawrence of Arabia": "One of them's mad and the other is wholly unscrupulous." It's the moment when you realize you just heard the truth, the meaning underlying all the drama. "They win in the end." Gave me a shudder.

Happy Together

If this candidate wants my vote, she can forget it.

This from The Daily Dish:

Jon Chait on the fratricidal maniac that is Hillary Clinton. Money quote:

Pennsylvania is a swing state that Democrats will almost certainly need to win in November, and Clinton will spend seven weeks and millions of dollars there making the case that Obama is unfit to set foot in the White House. You couldn't create a more damaging scenario if you tried.

If she cannot win the White House, she wants McCain to beat Obama. She is clearing the ground for him. A reader points out what the Clintons' next move would be as McCain takes office:

She and her numerous supporters will view this as a repudiation of Obama, not Clinton. If he loses the general election as a result of this, it will prove her right all along—that the only way to further the Democratic agenda is to beat the Republicans at their game. New politics will have been a sham. If the victors write the history books, then the triumph of cynicism will not be cause for despair, but rather cause for celebration of the one cynic who saw all this, and tried to save us hopemongers from ourselves.

This is the Golden Rule about the Clintons - and take it from someone like me who actually endorsed the guy in 1992 and came to see what lies beneath: it's always, always, always about them.

Wink, Wink (Or How The Dispirited, Sclerotic Rust Belt State Got Duped)

Well, I don't like the sophmoric bit at the end of this vid, but the rest of it is salient and damning. The more I see of Hillary the less inclined I will be to vote for her should she manage to bulldog her way to the nomination. 

Could this be the year—the first in my life—where I sit out an election? Or my first year voting for a Republican? Will I have to make a choice between the very cool possibility of voting for the first woman president or keeping whatever bits of integrity and honor that resides within my being? Time will tell, but my feelings and my thoughts are hardening against her, by the minute.

A Walking Hope Machine

The Rolling Stone breaks with its decades-long tradition and endorses a primary candidate. Here's an excerpt from their endorsement:

A New Hope
The tides of history are rising higher and faster these days. Read them right and ride them, or be crushed. And then along comes Barack Obama, with the kinds of gifts that appear in politics but once every few generations. There is a sense of dignity, even majesty, about him, and underneath that ease lies a resolute discipline. It's not just that he is eloquent — with that ability to speak both to you and to speak for you — it's that he has a quality of thinking and intellectual and emotional honesty that is extraordinary.

I first learned of Barack Obama from a man who was at the highest level of George W. Bush's political organization through two presidential campaigns. He described the first-term senator from Illinois as "a walking hope machine" and told me that he would not work for any Republican candidate in 2008 if Obama was nominated. […]

Obama has emerged by displaying precisely the kind of character and judgment we need in a president: renouncing the politics of fear, speaking frankly on the most pressing issues facing the country and sticking to his principles. He recognizes that running for president is an opportunity to inspire an entire nation. […]

We need to recover the spiritual and moral direction that should describe our country and ourselves. We see this in Obama, and we see the promise he represents to bring factions together, to achieve again the unity that drives great change and faces difficult, and inconvenient, truths and peril.

We need to send a message to ourselves and to the world that we truly do stand for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And in electing an African-American, we also profoundly renounce an ugliness and violence in our national character that have been further stoked by our president in these last eight years.

Like Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama challenges America to rise up, to do what so many of us long to do: to summon "the better angels of our nature."

Fired For Speaking The Truth

It's too bad, because Power—a foreign policy adviser to Obama and expert on international human rights—is a brilliant mind and an asset to the campaign. But any politician would have to ask for her resignation, but especially one running the kind of campaign Obama is. That said, which of us who has paid attention over the years can disagree with her?

Obama Advisor Resigns After Calling Clinton "A Monster"
On Friday, Scottish newspaper The Scotsman reported that Obama foreign policy advisor Samantha Power said the following about Hillary Clinton in an on the record interview:

"She is a monster, too -- that is off the record -- she is stooping to anything," The Scotsman quoted her as saying.

Stooping to anything is a trait both Clintons have demonstrated to the American public for decades, which is probably why they get along with the Bush family so well.