This convention has taken us Democrats to highs and lows not seen in generations.  At the same time, we have seen the same old weakness in the Democratic party that will surely lead us to defeat once again.  We are, after all, the party that will readily snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and 2008 will be no different.

The New York Times reports that the Iraqi government will go to recess without reaching agreement on a provincial election law.

"...leaving the fate of provincial elections in doubt for this year."

The surge did not succeed in its purported purpose.

http://tiny.cc/...

Crossposted at Politicook.net

Wow, lots has been said about Obama's technically correct response to a question, to paraphrase, asked, "What can we ordinary people do?".  The McCain campaign has been brutal, and ignorantly so.

Nothing is more important, other than the drive train, in making any land vehicle "go" than the instruments that actually touch the road.  Those instruments are tires, or as the Brits say, tyres.

Tires are the agent that converts the energy produces by the engine (for fuel powered vehicles) or the motor (for others) from the source of the motive power to the ground, in most cases a lane, street, road, highway, or Interstate highway.

I'm an engineer at Oregon State University.

I'd like to point out a few crucial facts that will give John McCain a better hand come the general election, unless Barack Obama reverses current energy policies.

I recommend that Barack have my blessing for flip-flopping on these issues.

I am and continue to be an advocate for renewable energy implementation.

More below.

Okay, so I had one repost request. That's popular enough for me. :)

Maybe I missed something -- that can happen. In real life, things can sometimes occur that are unexpected. But this seems almost surreal:

_____

Obama website's opposition to successful surge gets deleted

A funny thing happened over on the Barack Obama campaign website in the last few days.

The parts that stressed his opposition to the 2007 troop surge and his statement that more troops would make no difference in a civil war have somehow disappeared. John McCain and Obama have been going at it heavily in recent days over the benefits of the surge.

___

Crossposted to ePluribus Media, DailyKos, Docudharma and Below Boston

Maybe I missed something -- that can happen. In real life, things can sometimes occur that are unexpected. But this seems almost surreal:

_____

Obama website's opposition to successful surge gets deleted

A funny thing happened over on the Barack Obama campaign website in the last few days.

The parts that stressed his opposition to the 2007 troop surge and his statement that more troops would make no difference in a civil war have somehow disappeared. John McCain and Obama have been going at it heavily in recent days over the benefits of the surge.

___

I remember stories from my grandmother and stepfather about runs on banks. I remember that famous scene from "It's a Wonderful Life." Today my brother left a message telling me he saw an actual run on a bank in Duarte California. It begins.

After today's disgrace of the Senate's vote to pass the FISA Act unamended, Martin Niemoeller's poem comes to mind. If you will allow me a slight variation (Original Poem):

Over at the McCain website, campaign blogger Michael Goldfarb posts the transcript of a McCain radio interview conducted today in Denver.

       ROSEN: One more question and then we’ll let you go. I understood that you only had about 10 minutes with us. As I said earlier, Barack Obama is already modifying his absolute position calling for an immediate pull out from Iraq, if he’s elected. Given the success in Iraq, following our change in strategy, what’s your appraisal of the situation in Iraq, and what would be your approach to it, if elected President.

       SEN. MCCAIN: Well, I think you know that I opposed the failed strategy of the Bush administration. I argued for the strategy that is succeeding.

Really John McCain? You opposed George Bush's failed strategy? Unfortunately for Michael Goldfarb and John McCain the truth tends to not just disappear. Here are some select quotes from John McCain singing the same tune as the Bush administration.

Of course you already knew that, and this is a completely frivolous diary. But you know what? I'm gonna write it anyway, because I am in that kind of mood. Seriously, please, go do something better with your time, because it is going to be wasted here.

Update: Full of fail is leading in the poll. I dunno, I thought failure was a good choice too.

Update 2: Looks like Full of fail is going to take it. Maybe I'll e-mail Glenn Beck the results.

Posted simultaneously on ePluribus Media, DailyKos, Docudharma and Below Boston.

There are words that comprise paper tigers and those which ignite fires; some words are worth fighting to protect, others are not.

Some words forge new nations and ideals amid the forge-fires of conflict, while others are relegated to the dustbins of history as naught but a footnote at most.

There are words, on the page following, which have worth that appears to vary across the depth and breadth of the nation today.  Once -- long ago, perhaps -- they were words that could inspire and entice the people of a nation to do great things. Now, however, their fate appears uncertain.  I ask, fellow Kossacks, just one simple question: Whither the words necessary to marshal a hue and cry of outrage and demand for restoration, restitution and accountability?

Joe says; How dare you, McCain was a POW and a Prisoner and he was beaten and, and, and he can't raise his arms and... Joe, Joe, stop froat-ing at the mouth, McCain's mouth is not broken and he has to show his mind and mouth, match is sharp and has a firm grip on the issues of the day.

The Idiot would be me.

I first posted this as a comment to another story, asking for opinions and solutions to a particular problem, and received only a couple candidate/primary responses.  Shame.

As you will probably be able to tell from what I've written below, I'm no whiz when it comes to the Middle East. But my fears are genuine and concern the Middle East, Oil and how that region will shake out in the near future once we leave.

DHinMI wrote a FP story called Lebanon: Yet Another Foreign Policy Opportunity Screwed Up by the Bush Administrationthat focused on Lebanon, and how the Iraq war has "helped" to affect politics and life in that nation.

It got me wondering about our future as a nation once our nation was through fucking up the futures of the nations of the Middle East, went the hell home and quit sticking our arrogant noses into everyone's business.

It's not unusual for bad news to be interpreted as a death knell:  CDs/digital music would be the end of radio; the Intarweb would be the end of the newspaper; the Patriot Act is the end of civil rights; etcetera ad nauseum.

At the end of the 2006 elections, there was a quiet undercurrent throughout the news that the power held by the Republicans was at an end.  It was even whispered (quietly) that RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) would spell the end of the GOP.  But what's transpired in the last two years has me scratching my head and chuckling at the all too obvious conclusion:  It would be very easy for the Democrats to be destroyed by their very success.

Crossposted from ePluribus Media.

Recognize the title? Perhaps you may, particularly if you are married -- it's a snippet from a marriage vow.

________

To Have and to Hold From This Day Forward,
For Better or for Worse,
For Richer, or for Poorer,
In Sickness and in Health,
Forsaking All Others,
To Love and to Cherish,
Until Death Do Us Part.
________

Unfortunately, when I came across the phrase and paused long enough to take each line separately, it was not any type of matrimonial bliss that graced my mind, but instead the unholy union that has resulted in the current disaster currently damning our nation at the highest levels. What follows are the random thoughts I found darkly circling each phrase in the vow; tread softly now, that the imprints left do not permanently mar the once-bright promise and potential formerly associated with it...

Thanks to Crooks & Liars (and in truth Jon Stewart) I've come to realize that President Bush's biggest Iraq problem is that he can't define "victory" as well as he can define "failure."

In regards to ending the occupation of Iraq, he's essentially said it won't happen until there's victory. What's "victory?" Hard to say, since he's claimed military success regardless of whether the number of US soldiers killed goes up or down.

It may have seemed quiet in Iraq these last few months, but that is changing right now.
Iraqi leader orders militias to surrender weapons amid heavy fighting

BAGHDAD — Amid heavy clashes between government forces and Shiite Muslim militants in Baghdad and the southern port city of Basra, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki issued an ultimatum Wednesday demanding that the militias surrender their weapons within 72 hours. Radical cleric Muqtada al Sadr , whose Mahdi Army militia is a prime target of the government offensive, responded by demanding that Maliki leave Basra.

So while Muqtada Al Sadr and his militia start warming up their guns, I thought, what horrible timing, when it's obvious (snark) that this surge is going so well. Everythig has been sooooo sucessful. I then caught this little nugget on crooksandliars regarding the most likely reason our "success" is a sham and is about to slap us right back in our silly little occupying faces.
More below: