Clinton has gone from the 'I really care about what's happening to this country,' (then tears) to 'Whatever happens, we'll be fine,' (then a warm clasp of Obama's hand) to this: 'Meet me in Ohio and we'll have a debate about your tactics and behavior in this campaign!' (with a snarl). I love the last one; she sounds like a shrewish mom talking to her fifteen year old wayward son. How long must we put up with HER tactics, that are forever changing, and HER behavior, which is that of a bad loser!

Would Hillary's campaign against Gramps McLobby be as inept as her campaign has been so far?

Frank Rich compares her campaign to Bush's quagmire fiasco.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/opinion/24rich.html?hp

Ralph Nader going on MTP this morning.

He's so 20th century.

The last person who should be President of the US is the one that believes they should be.

That rules them all out.

Hey Queen NAFTA, the carpetbagger of NY, the only outrage I have is trying to figure out while your still in the race?!?!

The American people are tired of flip-flopping, poll-hopping drones. You should fire your legion of consultants. I'd love to hear just one original idea from you, Queen NAFTA. Personally, I don't think you are capable of that, which is why we just want you to go away.

I predict another temper tantrum and meltdown with cry on command...­. O it's so hard to run for President when I'm a vapid zombie and my legions of high paid consultants are pulling all the wrong strings. You SHOULD sue the people you hired to coach you on executive presence because listening to you is nauseating - not something the country needs as we try to repair our reputation.

Maybe you can move to China and set up a factory and sell some cheap Hillary line of clothing at you buddy, Sam Walton's humble little Arkansas store.

IMHO, this has nothing to do with who has the best plans (healthcare, economic, etc.) nor who has the most experience (that's relative anyhow). It comes down to after all this pandering, bickering and posturing a very simple concept. No matter what happens, there will be change on August 28 and November 4 of historical proportions unlike anything ever seen since the founding fathers embarked on this 232 year experiment. Regardless of the Election Day outcome, the Democratic Party will experience a shake-up unlike anything else seen in American politics since the anti-slavery expansion activists established the Republican party in 1854. If the movers and shakers in the Democratic Party are really concerned with its survival and prevalence, what it continues to stand for and the stability of this Democratic Republic at a pivotal moment in world history, then it should already be obvious that Barack Obama is the inevitable and only choice for the 2008 Democratic Primary presidental nomination.

There are three most likely possibilities one of which will play out on 20-Jan-2009 as a result of the 04-Nov-2008 election.

(1). Hillary Clinton becomes the forty fourth president of the United States as a consequence of just enough people in this country being fed up with George W. Bush, the policies of the Republican Party and the strangling reach of an ever widening economic recession. About 50% of eligible voters will have participated in the 04-Nov-2008 election. The Democratic party will be in the midst of an unsalvageable downward spiral and implosion due to the loss of the youth vote and thus, the party's contribution to the worst levels of voter apathy and loss of faith in the government ever seen before, although the party leadership will be in a state of euphoric denial. Politics will go on as usual - The Republican Party will will circle the wagons and continue to block and resist any Clinton administration initiatives, thus 45-60 million people will continue to go without healthcare, immigration reform will remain unchanged, the increasing grip of the recession will increase the rhetoric of hate (rich against poor, black against white, Christian against Christian, old immigrant against new immigrant, patriot against patriot) and the process of bringing the solders home and the ensuing geo-political chaos will severely weaken the United States negotiating position at the global table, thus increasing global instability.

(2). John McCain becomes the forty fourth president of the United States and the Republicans will have won a third term in the White House. The democratic party will have self-destructed and less than 50% of eligible voters will have participated in the 04-Nov-2008 election. The accelerated decline of the US empire will suddenly be apparent to the whole world and the simultaneous increased instability of this planet Earth. America will begin year six of the hundred year war in Iraq, taking $8B+/month from the middle and lower class and increasing American arrogance will be met by much more hard-line and aggressive stances from a resurgent oil rich Russia and the economic demand driven engines of China and India. The US will no longer be looked at as the first choice for global leadership direction. The bickering and stalled initiatives in the United Nations, particularly the politics of the security council will become very much like that of the US Congress. Al-Qaeda and other extremist groups around the globe will enter a new and different era of recruitment. The politics of fear will continue to prevail and peel away our civil liberties.

(3). Barack Obama becomes the forty fourth president of the United States. The Democratic and Republican parties enter a period of reformation shaking up their leaderships, re-defining themselves and America both domestically and globally. More than 60% of eligible voters will have participated in the 04-Nov-2008 election. Young people will have been engaged with the brilliant light of hope, which will continue it's infectious spread around the globe offering an opportunity for justice and peace. "We" has once again been put back into "the people." Transparency, truthfulness and the "audacity of hope" will engage the new electorate to hold public officials accountable in a completely new and different way. American will once again be looked to by the rest of the world for leadership. On the morning of 05-Nov-2008 older citizens all over this country will be visibly weeping and sobing in the private and public from the onset realization that the hopes, aspirations, prayers and sacrifices of theirs and their ancestors have been answered. One small step for America, one giant step for the planet Earth.

What's most difficult to predict is how young people will react to possibilities (1) or (2). Whether they wake up and realize the predicament of survival thrust upon them (possibly resulting in a 60's and 70's type of rebellion movement) or they go back to sleep ushering in another era of disfranchisement and 90's type of generation-X where everyone is out for themselves, there will be profound consequences for the baby boomer generation.

Hopefully the current leadership in the parties realize their fate and that the fate of the rest of the baby boomer generation is totally in their hands. If they (the party leadership) really believe in the American dream, the hope, opportunity, equality, prosperity and peace of a democratic society, then you need be no more than an ordinary person to see that the path there at this point in time can only be made via possibility (3). If on the other hand, they are only interested in self-aggra­ndizement, power and control, they will obviously attempt to maintain their leadership positions in the party. Regardless of the election outcome though, the Democratic Party will radically change and you don't need to be a rocket scientist to see that.

On a final note, it appears pretty evident that there's be a spiritual aspect to all of this at this point in time. Look around you and then look around the world. Chaos and belligerent escalation everywhere. It's obviously apparent that we're at a critical precipice or juncture and the decision of which path to take forward will determine the fate of humankind. It's as if we're being presented with choices and the opportunity to do the right thing by a higher power. Many of the signs of choice and intersection are there - An global and bi-racial descendant of slavery named Obama who dares you to hope, trust and test your faith, a woman and wife of a former president representing continuation of the establishment that talks past each other and a WAR hero in a world increasingly paralyzed from fear symbolized by a man named Osama (who also rebelled against the establishment though helping bring the world to the brink of destruction).

Close your eyes, say a little prayer for guidance and reflection - then go out and represent your hope, trust and faith through your vote!

I read and hear all the harsh and vitriolic statements about Hillary Clinton in the mainstream media and in these blogs, this one in particular, on all kinds of things: her motivations, her tactics, the contents of her heart, her pants suits, her voice, her forgiving Bill's transgressions, her "unattractive" child ... things significant and things ridiculously assinine & stupid -- yet no one can deny that she is a smart, insightful, hard working and capable public servant. In other words, the very things men are routinely rewarded for are in her case cause for criticism and used to beat her to a pulp. That should raise alarm in this country (and does not)--that we continue to denigrate dogged determination and smarts and elevate bravado and imagery. Bill obliquely referred to that and was nearly hanged for it. America will slaughter the Clintons politically and deny the country and the presumed president (Obama) a valuable political ally in the years ahead when his luster starts to dim as his opposition rises in the rough social & political tumble of American life. When it's revealed that he cannot turn water to wine and needs political experience, contacts, acumen and ability to accomplish his aims, it may be a good idea to have the Clintons on hand and NOT so disaffected they no longer want to serve.

wow, there are some supreme weirdos here. i'd be damned if what some posters that have a used laptop from rent-a-center or aarons say, are going to make me change who i am voting for.

its like the clinton supporters get an email from her campaign, and they all come to the huffpo, or politico, or anywhere else just to spew hate.

i have yet to see anyone post hillary's qualifications to be the president. none at all.

OT but spring is coming.
----------­----------­---

Whether the claim is true or not, the hard political reality is that Mulk and his hardline religious party are now out of power. In the 2002 election, he and scores of other ultra-conservative clerics swept into government in Pakistan's turbulent North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) on a tide of anti-Americanism and resurgent religious enthusiasm, vowing to impose Islamic law. But in last week's national and provincial polls, voters backed secular and liberal candidates and evicted the ruling alliance of religious parties.

The landslide triggered what some are now calling the 'Peshawar Spring'. The term may be a little exaggerated, but, for a troubled town pivotal to the 'war on terror', the normally dour and dusty provincial capital of NWFP certainly wears an unusually cheerful face this weekend. 'You can see it in the way people are walking and talking, even smiling,' said Iqbal Khattak, the editor of a local newspaper. Outside his office, unseasonable warm weather has tricked fruit trees into blossoming early. 'We are having two early springs here: one is the climate, the other the politics.'

In the bazaars and on the streets, change is already visible - and audible. Though the Islamic law bill that the hardliners passed in the provincial parliament was blocked at national level, the clerics were able to ban music in public places or on public transport. Now the sounds of local Pashtun folk music and Punjabi Bhangra are back - first in the street celebrations every evening last week, and then as the province's thousands of bus drivers once again slipped a cassette or CD into the stereos of their overloaded and over-decorated vehicles. 'Now I have music, I love my job again,' said Ashraf Mohmandi, one of the local drivers. 'I can breathe once more.'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/24/pakistan

------

Great news, may it last and heal the wounds.

To my friends over there, all my love.

You know, dangerous radicals like this are the reason the government needs unlimited power to spy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfI9B8e9tW4&feature=related

Great article by David Ignatius in the Washington Post. Old cold war experience need not apply for our current foreign policy challenges. McCrazy is an old cold war warrior who thinks that just bombing nations is what foreign policy means.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/22/AR2008022202175.html

I'M SO TIRED OF THE HILLARY CAMPAIGN I COULD SCREAM!!!

How can she run a month-long smear campaign against Barack Obama, only to appear on Thursday's debate and ACT like she's running a clean, fair race? And, after we halfway BELIEVE her, she comes out today and continues her frivolous, dirty attacks!? This isn't Presidential, this is a PERSONAL VENDETTA from a losing campaign!! She's clawing and scratching because she now realizes her "inevitable" campaign was derailed by a truly genuine, inspiring leader.

SHE'S NOTHING BUT A HYPOCRITE!! I'VE HAD ENOUGH!!

WE MUST NOT LOSE SIGHT OF THE FACT THAT HILLARY IS THE REPUBLICANS' DREAM CANDIDATE AND THEIR ONLY HOPE OF RETAINING THE WHITE HOUSE.

Well she does she believe she is ENTITLED to her way being the right way so bring it on. She'll have only herself to blame after she blows another chance, her patience is running thin, she's can't help herself, it ought to be HILARRYious.

Lesson two.

----------­----------­---------

What is sugar? Stored sunlight.

What is vegetable oil? Stored sunlight.

What is crude oil? Stored sunlight.

Where did crude come from? From millions of years worth of combining Sunlight with Carbon Dioxide and burying it. E.g.: storing it. From millions of years worth of combining Sunlight with Carbon Dioxide

(millions of years) x (100watts per sq foot Sunlight + Carbon Dioxide) = crude

OK, so crude is millions of years worth of Sunlight and Carbon Dioxide.

Vast quantities of stored-sun-energy and Carbon Dioxide.

Vast quantities of Carbon Dioxide.

Vast quantities of stored-sun-energy

So what are we doing by consuming crude oil?

Releasing VAST quantities of Carbon Dioxide.

Releasing VAST quantities of stored-sun-energy and Carbon Dioxide.

Into the present biosphere.

consuming crude = (millions of years) x (100watts per sq foot Sunlight + Carbon Dioxide)

It's a time machine, really.

We are moving VAST quantities of stored-sun-energy and Carbon Dioxide from the distant past into our present and future.

It's a VAST heat pump.

It's a VAST heat pump time machine.

It's a VAST CO2 pump time machine.

There are some among us that argue that this WILL NOT AFFECT US ???

----------­----------­----------­----------­----------­--------

OK, that was lesson two.