Apparently I'm a Cylon Infiltrator

I love Battlestar Gallactica. Best re-imagining of any TV series ever! Plus, it's chock full of conspiracies and aliens (ok evolved artificial intelligences) - two of my favorite things.

Actually went to the website and took the personality test. I'm a guerilla warrior resistance leader fighting for freedom. Pretty much the values I love and believe in - I would've loved to have fought in the Revolutionary War - establishing an entirely new government (New World Order - spooky!) unlike anything existing at the time and based on the innate nobility and equality of all men instead of divine right.

Though I wouldn't be a secret double agent unlike Sam or Gen. Arnold.

Snap Review: Virgin Festival

No - not the sacrificial kind. Though it does sound like a pro~abstinence rally.

STP rock the racetrack!
Iggy still Pops! Stooges not blind (from eye pokes)!
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with SprintSpeed

Testing Mobile Blogging

I'm going to take a crack at live-blogging the Virgin Music Festival. We,ll see how it goes. Yesterday Mrs. Uneven did it from her phone and it was pretty cool, so I,m setting up blogger email so I can try it.

Please excuse all typos. It's a tiny keyboard.

Get Your War On Gets Animated

Love it! One of the earliest dissenters against the Global War on Terror gets animated. Amazingly, the first episode translates the comic to its new medium with great verisimilitude. Check out the comic here, and the animation below:

In Memoriam: Tim Russert

From Today's Congressional Quarterly

Remembering Tim Russert
By Bruce Drake, CQ Staff

Tim Russert, who died of a heart attack today at 58, will long be remembered for becoming such a force in political journalism that when he declared the Democratic nomination battle over after the May 6 Indiana and North Carolina primaries, well, for many people, that made it official.

But I’ll remember Russert for something else, which is that he was one hell of an impersonator.

I found that out when I started out covering Congress in Washington for the New York Daily News and Russert was starting out as press secretary to the late New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

I needed to get Moynihan on the phone one day for a story and a few hours after leaving a message, my phone rang and I heard Moynihan’s characteristic, “Uh . . . uh . . . Bruce . . . This is PAT Moynihan . . . (he always seemed to hit the “Pat” hard) . . . What can I do for you?”

He was right on time because we had a 4 p.m. first edition deadline for the Daily News “Night Owl” edition, which hit the streets in Manhattan at 7 p.m., and it was already 3:30 p.m.

I interviewed Moynihan for 10 minutes then said, “Gotta go, Senator. Deadline.”

“Go get ‘em,” Moynihan said.

O.K. You already know the punchline.

I had just interviewed Tim Russert for 10 minutes, completely fooled by the $%*#.

Now, I do have to say that all his answers were correct. They just didn’t come from Moynihan.

Which Tim was kind enough to call back five minutes before deadline and tell me.

I did exact some revenge. A few weeks later, when I knew Russert was out of town, I put in a call to Moynihan for another story, even though I didn’t really need him for it. He called back in about 10 minutes.

“Uh . . . uh . . . young Bruce, this is PAT Moynihan. What can I do for you?”

Remembering Tim Russert
I asked Moynihan where I could call him back. He seemed to be taken somewhat aback, not only at the idea I’d push off a call from a senator, but probably because he couldn’t figure out why I had to ask him for a number when he was in his office.

I called him back five minutes later and when he came to the phone, I said, “Sorry, Senator. I just needed to make sure it was you and not Russert.”

I think Moynihan thought it was funny. Maybe. Well, maybe not.

But Tim always had a way with his bosses. I don’t know 100 percent for sure that the following story is true, it sounds kind of apocryphal. But, still, it sounds like Tim.

Tim had gone on to work for New York Gov. Mario Cuomo and was with him around the time that Cuomo electrified audiences with his keynote speech at the 1984 Democratic Convention in San Francisco, which was probably the high point of Cuomo’s career as far as the national stage.

The story goes this way: Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa was visiting New York, and was riding in a limousine with Cuomo.

As the two chatted, Tutu was said to have told Cuomo, “I met that delightful young man who works for you, who said he wrote your San Francisco speech.”

I never really knew Cuomo. I did know of his ego. I don’t think Cuomo thought it was funny.

So, maybe Tim liked to claim credit for some stuff. But he was never full of himself, and always open and outgoing whether you were a VIP or just someone standing next to him at the bar.

Speaking of standing next to him at the bar, I got a little taste of Tim’s liking to make sure that credit was paid where it was due.

Tim had been one of my references back in 1991 when National Public Radio hired me as senior Washington editor.

After I had moved up to be vice president of news at NPR in 2000, I bumped into Tim at Billy Martin’s Tavern in Georgetown.

He congratulated me on the promotion and said, “You know, I GOT you that job at NPR.”

Remembering Tim Russert
So, I bought the next round over his weak protests.

The Clash of the Alpha Females Comes Out of the Shadows (Part 3)

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi finally brought her subterannean campaign against U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton into the light today. In today's edition of the San Francisco Chronicle, Speaker Pelosi said "I will step in" if there is no resolution by late June regarding the seating of delegates from Florida and Michigan, the two states that defied party rules by holding early primaries.

Speaker Pelosi's now frontal assualt on Senator Clinton is being waged in the name of "Democratic Party Unity," but is really rooted in her own ambition.After all, "There can be only one" Alpha Female in town, and Pelosi desperately wants to avoid her historical moment as first female U.S. House Speaker not to be upstaged by the first female U.S. President.

When the Speaker "steps in," it will be to attempt to bum rush the remaining uncommitted (cowardly) Superdelegates into supporting Barack Obama. It's no secret that her more ardent supporters support Senator Obama and the remanining uncommitted superdelegates who are U.S. House Democrats are afraid to endorse Senator Clinton out of fear of the Speaker.

Speaker Pelosi will also try to use her influence and statements to undermine the argument that sexism is the root of Senator Clinton's failure to win the Democratic Nomination. This would be false for two reasons: (1) managing to get elected by a majority of the 230+ House Democrats to the most powerful Constitutional position does not actually mean sexism doesn't exist, it just means Pelosi's a smart Pol (i.e., a female Speaker does not equal a lack of national sexism); (2) Just because a powerful female comes out and engineers things to benefit a man, does not mean that the man did not previously benefit from sexism.

Those are are just logical flaws in Pelosi's attempts to undermine the sexism argument. They don't even address her hidden agenda, which I discussed above and earlier (click on the Alpha Female tag below)

You Always Lose the Debate When You Invoke Hitler

It's just a basic rule of political/philosophical discourse. Anytime you invoke a comparison to Hitler or his enabler's, you lose the debate. Period. End of discussion.

Even taking the Bush Administration at their word that they were really criticizing Carter's visit with Hamas (which I find contemptible due to their support of terrorist tactics, despite my support for the Palestinian cause), invoking Hitler was not politically smart. Hitler allusions are the last refuge of the intellectually weak who can't justify their positions/opinios without referencing one of the most evil men in history (Stalin and Mao killed more people indiscriminately and therefore arguably were more evil if you count simple bodies. However, the evil of Hitler's agenda, while banal, was well thought out, organized and rationally planned on a level of magnitude far different than the latter two).

To their credit, the Obama campaign was quick to use Bush's address to Knesset as a way of jump starting/ furbishing their weak foreign policy cred and taking the fight to the deeply (and deservedely) unpopular President. In doing so, they not only elevated themselves to the same level as the President by taking Bush on directly, but they further kept Hillary Clinton out of the news for another cycle, and possibly the weekend, thus hindering her campaign efforts in Oregon.

In short, Bush is a moron and Obama possesses a top-notch and savvy political team. Which really shouldn't be unexpected given that many of them were the Daschle Presidential campaign in waiting before John Thune beat him (barely) in 2004).

Another Step Down the Slippery Slope of Designer Babies & Transhumanism

AP reports that for the first time in known history researchers have aktered the genetic code of a human embryo. The entire story can be found here, but the money quote is:

The idea of designer babies is that someday, scientists may insert particular genes into embryos to produce babies with desired traits like intelligence or athletic ability. Some people find that notion repugnant, saying it turns children into designed objects, and would create an unequal society where some people are genetically enriched while others would be considered inferior.

The fear articulated above is completely legitimate. Afterall, no one really wants to live Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. The article referenced above quotes a scientist from the Center for Genetics and Society that said these techniques could be used by others to make genetically modified people, "and they're doing it without any kind of public debate." I'm all for scientific advancement, but bioethical issues such as this deserve to be debate fully by our society. It's bad enough that we have a meritocracy which looks down on those who fail to climb up as far. Establihing a new caste system created because those Thomas Jefferson referred to as The Natural Aristocracy in his Notes on the State of Virginia have access to wealth and resources which allow them to further priviledge their offspring through genetic engineering threatens our entire national identity. It also would profoundly alter social dynamics throughout the world.

There is an alternative movement called transhumanism which embraces the concept of germline genetic engineering and human nuero-interfacing with computers etc. as a way of furthering human potential. It's an active movement with whom I don't have as much quarrel on the neuro-interfacing issue because those hardward based modifications won't permanently be encoded and passed down in our genes. However it embraces a philosophy which essentially believes that anything which can be done should and will be done. Unfortunately, this philosophy is a pretty close approximation of how technology is advancing on our planet. Anything which is abhorrent to Western Civilization or Judeo-Christian Values will likely just take root and advance in Asia which does not necessarily share the same moral/philosophical values.

Such a step actually makes the prospect of a new caste system even worse because it further limits access to these technologies to those rich enough to travel to Asia and stay long enough to have the procedures performed.

I'm not sure what the answer to this is. But it is another step down the slippery slope.

Obama Owes McCain an Apology (and is just plain weak)

First of all John McCain simply repeated what Ahmed Yousef, chief political adviser to the Prime Minister said when he said that Hamas preferred an Obama Presidency. Here's the quote in its entirety:

"We like Mr. Obama and we hope he will win the election." This statement was made in an interview with Aaron Klein and John Batchelor interviewed on WABC.

Now we know why Obama was so sensitive to accusations that Hamas would prefer him as President - one of his advisors had been meeting with members of the radical terrorist group which wants to annilate Israel. The Washington Post piece on the meetings is here. Even Politifact.com - a non-partisan political fact checking website validates McCain's statement is "mostly true." You can find the entire analysis here.

Of course Chris Matthews and the liberal MSM won't discuss this on the Sunday morning shows - it would undermine their efforts to impose a liberal agenda on the nation. Anyone thinking Obama represents a restoration of Camelot misunderstands not only Obama's but also JFK's ideology. JFK was much more conservative than Nixon - an irony the left refuses to acknowledge and he aggressively fought Communism in every corner of the globe.

JFK confronted Communism throughout the Western Hemisphere, in Europe and in Asia. He backed at least one attempted coup against a Communist regime (Cuba) and a war to stop Communist insurgency in Southeast Asia (Vietnam). And he did these both without negotiating with our enemies.

Like it or not for the multi-culti left, Terrorism is the new Communism and the Global War on Terror is the new containment. Even Europe is beginning to wake up to the threats posed by the Iranian backed global terrorist movement (Hamas, Hezbollah and and has begun electing center-right governments which support taking the fight to the extremists before they bring it back here (again).

Obama's Victory Speech Demonstrates Ignorance of U.S. History

Two of the Presidents that Obama cited in his post-North Carolina victory speech as negotiating with U.S. enemies did no such thing. These would be FDR and JFK.

FDR negotiated with the Soviet Union, Great Britain and France in Yalta. However, at the time, the U.S. and Russia were allies against Germany, with whom the FDR did not negotiate, unlike the infamous appeaser Neville Chamberlin. The U.S. and U.S.S.R. did not become become adversaries until the post-World War II period, and the impetus for that actually was Roosevelt's Yalta concessions to Stalin which condemned half of Europe to Soviet Oppression for 50 years. If that's Sen. Obama's model for negotiating with our allies, he has no place in the Oval Office, let alone the U.S. Senate.

Additionally, the Soviet Union, while an adversary and competing power whose values we despised, was not an enemy, which is why the 1945-1991 period is called The Cold War. JFK's conversations/negotiations with them were aimed at preventing conflict and containing their ideology. He never negotiated with actual U.S. enemies such as Cuba's Fidel Castro (whom he tried to overthrow during the Bay of Pigs Invasion and then lost the cojones to call in U.S. air support to help our allies). In fact, JFK negotiated a secret treaty with Cuba promising not to invade in exchange for removal of the Soviet missiles - hardly a profile in courage. JFK also did not negotiate with our enemies in Vietnam, the war against whom he took over from the French.

If these are Senator Obama's models for negotiating with our enemies, I'd hate to see how he handles Iran, Hamas and Al Queda. He might as well just sell out Israel and abandon all hope of human rights and freedom East of the Mediterranen. And let's not forget that the real puppet masters of Hamas reside in Tehran.

Clash of the Alpha Females (pt.2)

From Time Magazine's piece on the End of the dem nomination contest:

All that could change after the last two states, South Dakota and Montana, vote on June 3. That's the time party chairman Howard Dean, Senate majority leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are expected to tell the superdelegates — about 300 of the roughly 800 delegates overall who have yet to commit — that it is time to make up their minds. Pelosi in particular is key, as more than 70 of those uncommitted superdelegates are House members. For many, holding back now is more a matter of principle than preference. "They don't want to be perceived as telling voters how to vote," says former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, who is heading Obama's superdelegate effort.

Don't underestimate Pelosi's influence here. She'll come down hard for Obama for reasons I discussed here. Additionally, her position that the elected delegates should decide and the automatic delegatees shouldn't weigh in is completely slanted towards Obama, instead of being neutral as it is commonly portrayed.

The 70 uncommitted House Members mentioned above are all beholden to Speaker Pelosi for their House Committee assignments and leadership positions. Don't forget that Pelosi took Jane Harman's Intelligence Committee Chairmanship away from her because Harman disagreed with Pelosi on aspects of the War on Terror. ALL Democrats remember that and are afraid of that. For that reason, they won't go against Pelosi in order to stay in her good favor. The Obama supporters generally come from the rival pro-Hoyer (House Majority Leader) faction of the party.

Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence and a Bad Haircut

Ok, so Barack Obama doesn't have a bad haircut. But the rest of the P.J. O'Rourke quote stands. She's been around and knows how to play the game even if she's down. He thinks you can have reasonable conversations with people whose main mission in life is to kill you and your friends.

She's gonna pull this off. If not, Obama will get crushed in November by the Republicans.

Jericho & The False Flag Meme

I was watching the Jericho series finale again today (TiVo Rocks!) and realized that the "9/11 Truth Movement" has succeeded in firmly planing the "False Flag" meme in our popular culture. False Flag refers to covert intelligence/military operations undertaken by a government and designed to appear as if they were conducted by another government or outside group. Until the last decade or so many historians considered the explosion of the USS Maine in Cuba a false flag operation engineered by the McKinley Administration to justify war with Spain to take over/liberate Cuba (in the past decade or so additional research has shown that the Maine's boiler probably exploded on its own accord, but there is no evidence of Spanish of American sabotage).

In Jericho, the false flag operation is conducted by officials at the Department of Homeland Security and blamed on Iran and North Korea, justifying the further perpetration of nuclear holocaust on these two nations. This furthers the meme of the "neo-conservatives" or members of the Project for the New American Century as war mongers against those two nations. This meme is based somewhat on reality, as it well known that neo-conservatives are international realists instead of Wilsonian idealists and are very concerned about those two nations' relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons and long range missle capability, (even to the point of entering space as Iran propose).

In the show, the shadow government's attack occurs in order to purge the government of the pervasive influence of Jennings & Rawl, an obvious proxy for Haliburton. This "Haliburton is evil and associated by Vice President Cheney" meme is very widespread throughout our culture, especially among the hard core left. It's amazing how sutbtly anti-Bush Jericho really is. After all, you'd expect that a show based on an American nuclear holocaust would really be more pro-killing terrorists.

Getting these memes (further) embedded in the mainstream culture is an enormous success for the 9/11 Truth Movement. It helps make people more receptive to their misguided conspiracy agenda.

Members of the 9/11 Truth Movement believe that elements inside the Bush Administration or federal government (or the Israeli government) engineered the 9/11 attacks. The typical motive for this alleged false flag operation frequently is attributed either to justifying a Middle East war over oil or changing the political issue matrix to benefit the Republican Party and ensure continued political dominance. Oh yeah, and to enrich the President's friends.

Now, the first reason is laughable. The Israelis are in a strong enough position to take care of themselves, and war is always an enormous drain on a nation no matter how necessary (WWII was a necessary war for example). The second motive is somewhat more plausible (though still absolute crap). Here's why: in late 2001 almost the entire political issue matrix was geared against the Republican party and its principles. Good economic times in the 1990s had produced not only a balanced budget, but one in large and growing surplus. People were happy and shifting their attention away from the international sphere and back to the domestic issues on which the Democratic Pary had an advantage. Additionally, a United States government able to pay back most of its outstanding debt and eventually pay it all off would prove economically damaging to the banking industry.

These facts provide a kernel of truth from which to grow an entirely ridiculs conspiracy theory based on any substantiated association or causality. The "theory" : the executive branch initiated treason against our nation in order to put its political party back in political advantage ensuring its own continued power and accumulating even more power by taking advantage of the extreme national culture shock of 9/11 to accumulate more power through the Patriot Act and other measures.

The History Channel showed a documentary last week called "The 9/11 Conspiracies" which explored the conspiracies and then offered rational responses to the execrable false flag charges.

These Truthers cling much to hard to the conspiracy meme of a "supercompetent federal government." We're talking about a bunch of guys who actually tried to kill Castro by giving him an exploding cigar. The same people who masterminded the disastrous Bay of Pigs fiasco in which they lost their nerve and declined to call in air support for the invastion, thus guaranteeing its failure. Plus there are enough potential whistleblowers in the government that any such conspiracy would have become exposed since it would have had to involve officials at multiple federal agencies. Even within the same Department, and especially within Homeland security due to the disjointed and spread out nature of its buildings, it is difficult to coordinate anything without the help of people lower down the food chanin than the "principals" (Administrators, Assistant Secretaries and their Deputies, Directors of Progams).

The Ks (our present decade)

I've always thought it odd that the pop culture didn't adopt "k" as a meme to refer to years in the first decade of the 21st Century. After all, we spent most of the 1990s hearing all about "the why [two] [kay] problem" (Y2K). After years of conceptually thinking about the year 2000 Anno Domini in abbreviated metric (2k= two thousand [duh]), why didn't we refer to 2001 as 2k1, 2002 as 2k2, etc?

I think we should. Every decade needs a name like "The Roaring Twenties." And even if "The Ks" isn't quite as glamorous, we still need something at least somewhat numerical to use as a reference for this, our current, first decade of the 21st Century. Sure as hell beats "The aughts."

Alicia Keys' Far Out Conspiracy Theorry on the Rap War

Now, I believe that the LAPD likely was involved with Tupac's death. I also believe that the East Coast-West Coast Rap War was much more serious than the mainstream media or federal government were willing to acknowledge. However, it is just plain far out to think the federal government conspired with the media to kill both Tupac and Biggie to stop the rise of a new black leader. If that was the goal, you could've just stopped at Tupac. Despite my admitted West Coast bias, I just don't see Biggie having the same ideology nor political upbringing that Tupac did.

Interestingly though, our nation has had a surge in prominent black leaders since the death of Biggie Smalls. James Clyburn is now the House Majority Whip (the #3 most powerful position in the U.S. House of Reps); Oprah's empire has flourished; Barack Obama became a U.S. Presidential Candidate and the second African-American Senator to be elected from Illinois within a 12 year period.

Alicia Keys conspiracy theory is below.

NEW YORK (AP) - There's another side to Alicia Keys: conspiracy theorist. The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter tells Blender magazine: "'Gangsta rap' was a ploy to convince black people to kill each other. 'Gangsta rap' didn't exist."

Keys, 27, said she's read several Black Panther autobiographies and wears a gold AK-47 pendant around her neck "to symbolize strength, power and killing 'em dead," according to an interview in the magazine's May issue, on newsstands Tuesday.

Another of her theories: That the bicoastal feud between slain rappers Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. was fueled "by the government and the media, to stop another great black leader from existing."

Keys' AK-47 jewelry came as a surprise to her mother, who is quoted as telling Blender: "She wears what? That doesn't sound like Alicia." Keys' publicist, Theola Borden, said Keys was on vacation and unavailable for comment.

Though she's known for her romantic tunes, she told Blender that she wants to write more political songs. If black leaders such as the late Black Panther Huey Newton "had the outlets our musicians have today, it'd be global. I have to figure out a way to do it myself," she said.

The multiplatinum songstress behind the hits "Fallin'" and "No One" most recently had success with her latest CD, "As I Am," which sold millions.

Clash of the Alpha Females, p.2: Hillary Strikes Back

The competition to be the Alpha Female is well under way. Speaker Pelosi is now under attack from the Clinton campaign for her repeated assertion that the remaining uncommitted automatic delegates should discard their right to vote for their first choice and instead vote for whomever has the largest number of elected delegates.
This position is such an irritant to Senator Clinton's Presidential aspirations that financial backers of Senator and former President Clinton sent a letter to the Speaker asking her to avoid further public pronouncements along these lines. Implied by the "shakedown letter," as it has become known, is that the donors will cut off fundraising for and donations to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the campaign arm of Speaker Pelosi's House Democrats.

The Speaker's position is inconvenient for the Senator because if heeded, it would serve to ensure that Barack Obama (see article inset below) becomes the nominee even if his delegate lead shrinks to an insignificant number. Despite the Speaker's constant since early February (find cite)her repeated public pronouncements of it

Pelosi's Delegate Stance Boosts Obama
By DAVID ESPO – 2 days ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says it would be damaging to the Democratic party for its leaders to buck the will of national convention delegates picked in primaries and caucuses, a declaration that gives a boost to Sen. Barack Obama.

"If the votes of the superdelegates overturn what's happened in the elections, it would be harmful to the Democratic party," Pelosi said in an interview taped Friday for broadcast Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

The California Democrat did not mention either Obama or his rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, by name. But her remarks seemed to suggest she was prepared to cast her ballot at the convention in favor of the candidate who emerges from the primary season with the most pledged delegates.

Obama leads Clinton by 142 pledged delegates — those delegates picked in nomination contests to date, in The Associated Press' count.

Barring an unlikely string of landslide victories by the former first lady in the remaining states, he will end the primary season with a delegate lead, but short of the 2025 needed to win the nomination.

That gives the balance of power to the so-called superdelegates, prominent Democrats who are automatically entitled to attend the convention because of their status as members of Congress or other leaders. Clinton leads Obama for their support in the AP count, 249-213.

Pelosi's comments could influence other House Democrats who are neutral in the presidential race and will attend the convention as superdelegates.

In her interview, Pelosi also said that even if one candidate winds up with a larger share of the popular vote than the delegate leader, the candidate who has more delegates should prevail.

"It's a delegate race," she said. "The way the system works is that the delegates choose the nominee."

More than 500 delegates remain to be picked in primaries beginning on April 22 in Pennsylvania, which has 158 at stake on April 22.

In addition, Democrats in Michigan and Florida are demanding to have their delegations seated, even though they moved up the dates of their primaries to January in defiance of Democratic National Committee rules.

Clinton said Saturday she supports an effort by Michigan Democratic leaders to hold a do-over primary in early June, but the Obama campaign has not yet said whether it will agree. A full delegation would give the state 128 pledged delegates, not counting superdelegates.

In Florida, a plan for a mail-in primary appears doomed, leaving two major possibilities if the state's Democrats are to participate in selecting a nominee.

One is for a full-scale primary.

The other is a negotiated agreement in which Obama and Clinton split the 185 pledged delegates that would have been awarded had the Jan. 29 primary counted.

One prominent official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there have been preliminary discussions among the state's House Democrats to see whether a compromise can be reached along those lines.

Clinton would have won 38 more delegates in the primary than Obama, had the primary results been used to award delegates, according to The Associated Press' calculations. Merely dividing the delegates evenly would leave Obama's delegate lead unchanged. Obama appeared to open the door to some sort of agreement earlier this week, when he spoke of a procedure "that doesn't advantage one candidate or another too much."

In Defense of Superdelegates: They Actually ARE Elected

It is a common meme in the MSM that superdelegates are unelected. That is not true.

First of all, the term superdelegate is a misnomer - they are more accuratey referred to as "automatic deleates." There are 796 superdelegates in the Democrat party. Approximately 230 of those are elected Members of the U.S. House of Representatives (I can't recall the exact make up right now), and another 50 are elected U.S. Senators. Therefore at least 280 of the 796 superdelegates are elected. They are just elected by their own states or Congressional Districts during federal elections.

Most of the remaining superdelegates are State Party National Committeemen, State Party National Committeewomen and State Party Chairs. These positions also are elected, abeit by the activist core of each state party. About the only "automatic delegates" who have never been elected to anything are the 54 Executive Directors of the state (and territorial) parties. The remaining automatic delegates are current and former party leaders in the U.S. House and Senate (i.e., Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt are both automatic delegates because they are previously elected leaders of their respective Congressional Caucuses), as well as a former Presidents such as Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. These last two categories are insignificant both percentage-wise and in absolute numbers.

Ergo, 742 of the so-called superdelegates actually are, elected to positions of leadership within their state parties, within the nation or within their respective Congressional caucuses. Given that over 90% of the automatic delegates ARE elected in some capacity, then the claims that they are somehow unrepresentative of the party is just plain B.S. (or lazy journalism).

Often overlooked is that the current presidential election cycle is the first time that the Republican Party has implemented automatic delegates. However, this number is limited to 200 some odd delegates consistin of the State Chairs, State Party National Committeemen, State Party National Committeewomen and State Party Executive Directors of the 54 states and territories. According to a GOP State National Committeewoman, the reason for this is that in the past these people, ironically, have sometimes not been elected as delegates due to their responsibilities within the state party interfering with their ability to compete for a delegate position.

The Coming Clash of the Alpha Females (Pelosi & Clinton)

Speaker Pelosi has already made history as the first female Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives since our founding. Little wonder that rumors persist that Speaker Pelosi will endorse Obama as the Democratic Party's Presidential Nominee. After all, why would she want to have her historical moment eclipsed by the first female President of the United States? Even The Hill notes that the two women have virtually no relationship, and why should the Speaker seek one anyway?

If Senator Clinton does become the next President, we can expect a below the radar struggle between the two of them for dominance in the Capitol. The Presidency has the bully pulpit, but the Speaker is the most powerful Constitutional Officer in the United States. As the saying goes, "Congress proposes, the President disposes." Speaker Pelosi will be able to win any power struggle between the two of them simply by ignoring President Clinton's agenda or requests, or outright opposing it.

President Clinton will have to be careful not to alienate Speaker Pelosi. The last time Senator Clinton was in charge of a domestic policy initiative (Hillarycare), also with a Democratic Congress, she thought she could put a package together inside the White House and ignore the relavant Congressional leaders (Senate Finance Chairman Moynihan, House Commerce Committee Chairman Dingell and House Ways & Means Chairman Rostenkowski) and simply present Congress her own package for them to rubber stamp. Any return to that type of attitude will raise the hackles of the Speaker and her Chairman. And a Speaker is not to be trifled with - remember, Jimmy Carter's Presidency was destroyed by Speaker O'Neill, not by minority Republicans.

2006-2008 TV & Commercial Soundtrack Play List

Once again, I am compiling a playlist of songs from television shows that have been in rotation during that past year. However, unlike previous playlists, this one also contains songs from commercials as well instead of segregating the two. Below is what I have so far:

Everybody Wants to Rule the World (Tears for Fears) - Kid Nation theme song
Come Anytime (Hoodoo Gurus) - Thank God You're Here theme song
I know, You Know (The Friendly Indians) - Psych theme song
Calling All Friends (Low Stars) - What About Brian? theme song
Hello Goodbye (The Beatles) - Target commerical
Blister in the Sun (Violent Femmes) - Burger King commercial
This is the Day (The Thes)- M&Ms commercial
It's a Jungle Out There (Randy Newman) - Monk theme song
Ice Cream ((New Young Pony Club)) - Intel commercial
Hockey Monkey (James Kochalka Superstar and the Zambonis) - The Loop theme song
God Only Knows(The Beach Boys)- Big Love theme song
We're Not Going To Take It (Twisted Sister) Yaz birth control commercial
Superman (R.E.M.) Toyota Sequoia commercial
The Part Where You Let Go (HEM) Liberty Mutual Insurance Company
Put A Little Love in Your Heart (Annie Lennox & Al Green/Jackie Desharm) Smart Balance fake butter commercial



I appreciate suggested additions.

The Yankee-Cowboy War Looks to Continue

After Tsunami Tuesday, it looks like the Big Mo is with Senators Clinton and McCain, thus setting up another battle in the Yankee-Cowboy War. The Yankee-Cowboy War is a way of conceptually understanding that the Post-World War II period produced a shift in the source of American ruling-class (oligarchic) power from the Northeast to the Southwest/West fueled by shifts in the sources of economic wealth.

The Southern Rim drawn from a line South of North Carolina across the nation to San Francisco (Cowboys) with its oil, natural resources and technology based sources of economic power has risen to challenge the banking and industrial power of the Eastern Establishment based in Chicago, New York, Boston, and the industrial states (Yankees). The Eastern Establishment ruled the country more or less unchecked,from our founding until the oil, aviation and aerospace (and later technology) industries matured and the Southwest (and West) became a rival source of economic power, producing its own social elite. It has dominated Presidential elections since 1960 (see below).

The Yankee-Cowboy War is essentially a post-Marxist conception of ruling class infighting between rival factions. It's important to note that the war is actually fought by political donors, corporate executives etc., and the actual politicians are not necessarily conscious (beyong their own class interests) of this ongoing war. Whether you agree with the premise or not, a look at our Presidents and Presidential contests post-Eisenhower shows that the fundamental battles for political control have been fought between representatives of these two establishments.

1960 - JFK v. Nixon - Yankee (JFK) Won
1963 - Cowboy (LBJ) comes to power in a putative coup engineered by his supporters.
1964 - LBJ v. Goldwater - Cowboy v. Cowboy, though LBJ had deep ties to the Yankee faction.
1968 - Nixon v. Humphrey - Cowboy (Nixon) won
1972 - Nixon v. McGovern - Cowboy (Nixon) won
1974 - Yankee (Ford) comes to power in a putative coup engineered by his supporters.
1976 - Ford v. Carter - Cowboy (Carter) won
1980 - Carter v. Reagan - Cowboy (Reagan) won
1984 - Reagan v. Mondale - Cowboy (Reagan) won
1988 - Bush 41 v. Dukakis - Cowboy (Bush 41) won
1992 - Bush 41 v. B. Clinton - Cowboy v. Cowboy. Bush 41 and Clinton both had deep ties to the Yankee faction through educational background and professional ties. In this case however, Clinton represented the interests of the Yankee faction and Bush's deep financial ties to the Cowboy (oil) establishment align him with their interests.
1996 - B. Clinton v. Dole - Yankee (Clinton) won - Georgetown, Yale and McGovern Presidenial Campaign experience make Clinton more of a Yankee representative than a Cowboy one.
2000 - Gore v. Bush 43 - Cowboy (Bush 43) won - Gore, though putatively from Tennessee spent his life growing up within the Eastern Establishment, even attending Harvard, and thus represented the Yankee establishment
2004 - Bush 43 v. Kerry - Cowboy (Bush 43) won - Bush's time in the Northeast seems not to have influenced him as much as it did Clinton despite his being a Yale Alum and member of the elite Skull & Bones Society
2008 - McCain v. H. Clinton - a classic showdown during which the Yankee faction may finally claw its way back to power. Despite spending time in Arkansas, Senator Clinton has alway been a Yankee, from growing up in the Chicago suburbs to attending hte elite Wellesley and Yale universities.

It's worth noting that in the elections from 1960 to present, the Cowboy faction has been dominant, winning 9 of 12 contests. In the cases where two putative members of the Cowboy faction competed against each other, the one more closely tied to the Eastern Establishment at the time has lost. Bill Clinton is the only President to be elected from the Yankee faction during this time, and the other two Yankee Presidents came to power through the death or political destruction of their Cowboy predecessors.