Like a hell broth boil and bubble

I also like this passage in the American Thinker article cited by Anne:

It looks like Obama's belief in his inevitability may have led him into a blunder, making it easier for Hillary supporters to prevent a nomination on the first ballot. After that point, anything goes, as all super delegates and many pledged delegates are free to vote their preferences.

After accepting the party's decision last June to seat the delegates from Michigan and Florida but with half votes, only days ago Obama said he wanted the delegates to have full votes

Obviously, he said this believing he has won the nomination and that pandering to voters in critical general election states is of more importance.

If the party goes along with Obama's request, it reduces the number of super delegates who would need to sit out the first ballot for Obama to be denied the nomination, opening the way for Clinton! Ouch!

This is proof that the man should not be negotiating with Ahmadinejad. If he cannot think strategically and recognize his vulnerability to a last minute ambush at the convention, he would be eaten alive in big league world affairs.

Worst of all, in his letter to the Credentials Committee arguing in favor of full votes for the two delegations, he writes:

Democrats in Florida and Michigan must know that they are full partners and colleagues in our historic mission to reshape Washington and lead our country in a new direction.

These words tacitly argue for acceptance of the popular vote results in those states. Obama cannot see one step ahead, for adding them to the vote count would give the Democratic primary season popular vote majority to Hillary.

There are about three weeks to the delegate voting. Things can still happen or even, as sometimes suspected with the Clintons, be made to happen.

You know that The Comeback Kid is muttering incantations right now. It wouldn't take much magic, just a couple more major gaffes by the Obamas and a downtrend in the polls, to induce a change in the msm's religion. If you were the New York Times, having burnt your boats with McCain with false innuendo about an affair with a lobbyist, it might be the lesser risk to start a drumbeat of doubt about a weakened Obama. If McCain is smart (I know, I know), he'll ease back on Obama till the nomination. Hillary is more formidable. The comic possibilities of Obama as underdog on a Clinton/Obama ticket are delicious to contemplate. Hubble, bubble:

Retro-authentic is fashionable

Evan Bayh - first impressions

There's talk that Obama will announce Evan Bayh to join his ticket, maybe tomorrow. I believe it. I'd never registered Bayh, so I had no preconceptions other than the routine contempt I have for any modern Democratic senator, especially one who voted against Roberts and Alito. My first impressions, based on a couple of YouTube clips and his Wikipedia entry are super-superficial and therefore fresh and valuable.

Bayh would have been a better nominee than Hillary or Obama. His relative centrism on Iraq and the economy is where Obama is staggering towards. He's a 2-term governor too. Now that Obama's bullshitterism, weathervane-ism, vapidity, liberal fascism, stuttering and pathetic resume are getting rumbled by the public and even the press, Bayh would be an asset.

Against him is his repellent John Edwards haircut and his smoothness. He's fluent, adroit and can think on his feet, unlike Obama, which may disqualify him. A running mate who looks better than his principal is hard to pick. That's probably McCain's biggest problem with Romney, but McCain is a bigger man than Obama. If McCain picks Cantor then the Bayh/Cantor contest might get interesting as mud-wrestling packs more of a frisson when the players start off looking respectable, but it will probably be boring; 2 conventionally handsome, fluent young pols positioning themselves for 2012 and beyond. Since my knowledge of Cantor is a single YouTube clip, it's especially worthwhile.

Bayh's oiliness is on display at the opening of this clip:

Liberal traditions

"I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions."

Object oriented justice

A few moments' glance at this interview shows Gary McKinnon as a likeable nut, but he's about to be smashed by a sledgehammer wielded by thugs:

This London hacker will now be extradited to the US to be prosecuted for hacking into NASA/Pentagon systems. He faces 70 years in jail. The details of damage claimed in the extradition seem blatantly trumped up and the critical impetus seems to be embarrassment at the criminal incompetence of the US in safeguarding its own systems. (The UK is no better as numerous instances show of briefcases of secrets left in trains ). The atmospherics are that the US-UK extradition treaty is resented in the UK given that Congress failed for years to ratify it apparently to shield IRA terrorists in the US whose murders used to be seen as political acts and given the indifference to justice which is rampant in high profile US persecutions.

McKinnon committed this "biggest military computer hack of all time" using a dial-up modem and blank passwords.

...he did admit that he hacked into dozens of US government computer systems. In fact, he calmly detailed just how easy it was to access extremely sensitive information in those systems.
"I found out that the US military use Windows," said Mr McKinnon in that BBC interview. "And having realised this, I assumed it would probably be an easy hack if they hadn't secured it properly."
Using commercially available software, Mr McKinnon probed dozens of US military and government networks. He found many machines without adequate password or firewall protection. So, he simply hacked into them.

The recent shenanigans of US prosecutors in rebus Conrad Black, Lt.Col. Chessani, Hank Greenberg and many other cases have brought US justice into disrepute among Yankophiles like me. The rot of course starts at the top with the grotesque social engineering agenda of the US Supreme Court.

From the war against the West

Lt. Colonel Jeffrey Chessani appears to be the subject a political prosecution on charges of covering up the deaths of civilians at Haditha in Iraq.

....The government is doing everything it can to convict LtCol Chessani. He is the political scapegoat they must convict to satisfy Murtha and the press.

The vast resources of the military are at its disposal. The number of military investigators is virtually limitless. Government prosecutors can go anywhere, talk to anyone, and get anything, all at government expense. The Marine command structure is mandated to cooperate.

So far, the government has spent millions of our taxpayer dollars, employed over 65 Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) agents ─ the largest investigation in that agency’s history ─ and granted immunity to scores of witnesses, all in their attempt to make Jeffrey and the “Haditha Marines” political scapegoats.

If you want to defend a brave man who has defended us click here.

Richard Dawkins in a nutshell

The most famous atheist isn't actually an atheist, but he is intellectually honest about it. On a scale of 1-7 of atheism he's only a 6, he says, after all he's a scientist. I have a friend whose self-description as 'local atheist, universal agnostic' fits Dawkins. Tho unimpressed myself by secular humanism, I am impressed by Dawkins when he's not propounding his jejune views on Bush and Iraq. Here's a routine knockout punch by a master:

Bananaman

Polls say 'Obama'

I'm a banana.

You can judge a man by his friends

The sound of air escaping

My instinct tells me that Obama's balloon is overinflated, but at least he has the internet sewn up, right? Wrong:

"When I'm 65"

Happy Birthday tomorrow to one likeable old age pensioner. He and I were both born in Dartford, Kent. Many more, Mick. Here's an attractive Charlie Rose interview: