The Weekly Green Planet

CNN: Please, Turn Us Off! (Climategate)

2009-12-09T10:29:00.000-08:00

CNN habitually provides a platform for the likes of Christopher Horner, a man essentially shouting fire in a crowded theater when it comes to global climate change.

It allows boldly asserted lies, e.g., his assertion that the climate change data has been fabricated, to go essentially unchallenged – as though the most outrageous statements need no refutation, and then CNN’s anchors (in this case Campbell Brown) take the provocateur’s statement as the predicate (“Climategate”) for a debate among responsible talking heads who are asked to defend against these baseless charges.

The result is irresponsible journalism of the most egregious kind. But 'good' TV as a TV producer might say. It's the modus operandi of this so-called news organization. Never, for example, in Horner’s case are his thoroughly disreputable and totally self-interested bonafides stated, let alone questioned. In fact, Horner’s only ostensible means of income is the CEI, an advocacy group based in Washington DC that calls itself "a non-profit, non-partisan research and advocacy institute dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government,” but is, in fact ,a consortium of rabid, unrepentant and unscrupulous energy companies, energy company-owned foundations, and private foundations whose fortunes were amassed from tobacco and oil. But his wholely unfounded claims become the basis of a bogus discussion. His expertise, if he has one, is as a lawyer/lobbyist, a paid flack with no science background whatsoever. "Why," Campbell Brown then opines with a supercilious shake of her walnut mane, "Why would climate scientists around the world conspire to claim the earth is getting warmer?" What ensues, inevitably interrupted by the energy company pitbull Horner with snide insinuation and totally groundless authority, centers on what motivation NASA, NOAA and the world community of climate scientists could possibly have to conspire to rig data or falsify a conclusion about global warming. Reasons are inevitably offerred and apologies and explanations profferred. But the entire exercise is an obscenity -- a big lie. It’s an abuse of the air-waves. It should be punishable by FCC license revocation as once-upon-a-time it was.

CNN is simply a money-grubbing rumor-mill. No better than Fox in many ways, and hardly superior to the kind of ranting and hyperventilating found on MSNBC by Keith Doberman. Why do they do it?

Below, from Simulmedia.com are two graphs which explain why absolutely NO REPORTING of any kind was done for over two hours during CNN's promotion of the bogus balloon boy story October 15th, 2009.

As we see in the chart and graph below, the CNN ratings skyrocketed with the balloon’s flight last Thursday as the story first “aired.”

The set top box tune in to CNN Newsroom between 1 and 4 pm EST on October 15^th was more than 1.6 times higher than on the three previous Thursdays at the same time. The tune in to The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer more than doubled in comparison to each of the three previous Thursdays. At 6:14pm EST, CNN reported that young Falcon Heene had been found. The story’s arc culminated for the night, and the prime time CNN ratings returned to normal levels.

The less obvious effects of spectacular viewership spikes on breaking news may prove more interesting.

http://www.simulmedia.com/2009/10/cnn-ratings-soar-with-the-balloon-boy/

simulmedia.com yuliya torosjan

(BLOG IN PROGRESS...)

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS, FT. HOOD & THE RIGHT

2009-11-27T08:25:00.000-08:00

Or, You Can Get Anything You Want... Except An Honorable Discharge!!!

THE PALINS & CHENEYS who know so much about the armed forces in general, never having served, are leading the chorus of blathering 'tea-baggers' and morons-general, sounding the alarm of political correctness.

They hint, over and over, ad nauseum, that the reason Nidal Malik Hasan wasn't drummed out of the service before he became the shooter in the Fort Hood 'terrorist attack' -- and it's critical to them it be called a 'terrorist attack', as if the term weren't meaningless enough, believing there's political gold to be mined suggesting it represents a lessened level of alert now that W and his crew of incompetents are gone -- is that these days our armed services are incredibly sensitive to political correctness.

Are they insane?! Short answer: Yes. Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, these guys think driving a Hummer makes them military experts.

You don't get out of this man's Army, now or ever, particularly after they've spent HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of DOLLARS training your sorry-ass to become a DOCTOR, when you couldn't have got into a legitimate med school as a civilian with an automatic weapon -- just because you've printed up some business cards with SofA (Soldier of Allah) on it.

Or made your Muslim, anti-war on terror views publicly known. Or merely acted crazy.

"No way, Pal. You think this is going to get you a discharge?!" The Army Brigadeer says to Dr. Hasan when he submits his umpteenth discharge request. "Now, suddenly, you're a conscientious objector? I'll tell you what THIS is going to get you -- a deployment to Iraq!!

According to NPR, fellow students and faculty were strongly troubled by Hasan's behavior, which they described as "disconnected," "aloof," "paranoid," "belligerent," and "schizoid."

"And I walked in and sat down and they gave me a piece of paper, said,
"Kid, see the psychiatrist, room 604."

And I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I want to kill.  I mean, I wanna, I
wanna kill.  Kill! I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and
guts and veins in my teeth!!!... And the sargent came over,
pinned a medal on me,sent me down the hall, said, "You're our boy."...

And when I finally came to the see the last man, I walked in
and I walked up and said, "What do you want?"  He said,
"Kid, we only got one question. Have you ever been arrested?"

And I'm pleased to see this man's army hasn't changed one whit.

Obama Wins Cy Young & MVP in National League

2009-10-09T12:24:00.000-07:00

"I'm humbled," The President said today when he heard of the announcements, "I'm honored, and I have to say I do think, in this case, the Cy Young, at least, is premature. " Off the record a surprised White House Staffer was heard to say, "What the 'eff'? Who's the American League going with, C.C. Sabathia?"

On the heels of the Nobel Peace Prize, an undeniable momentum seems to be building for the newbie Prez. At Harrah's, a representative for the Sports Book said it was, in his view, unprecedented. "I have to tell you, we haven't even made our book yet. But moving into the awards season, unofficially, he's odds-on to win Best Director, I shit you not."

Vegan: Won't Eat Anything That Has A Facebook Page

2009-10-09T10:09:00.000-07:00

Creature from Vega

Given it's deeply held conviction about the sanctity of life, this visitor from a neighboring solar system has vowed NOT to eat social networkers. Weekdays.

Vega, of course, is the brightest star in the constellation Lyra, the fifth brightest star in the night sky and the second brightest star in the northern celestial hemisphere, after Arcturus. It is a relatively nearby star at only 25 light-years from Earth, and, together with Arcturus and Sirius, one of the most luminous stars in the Sun's neighborhood.

So, it really makes a lot of sense that a being from Vega might take such a stance.

What is more surprising perhaps is what this reseacher discovered on his own:

RAPIDLY SPINNING STAR HAS COOL DARK EQUATOR

That's right, good diet can really make a difference in your appearance. And one thing it effects is your waist. If you're cutting down on fat calories stay away from empty ones.

Fox News Finds Commie Czars On Nobel Committee!

2009-10-09T09:11:00.000-07:00

"Yes, 'Commie Czars'!, or, oops, correct that, 'commissars'... How do you pronounce that word? Where's my producer? Who works here now? This can't be right.. 'Obama wins the Nobel'? Okay. Would somebody please check the wire services. This is a joke...Isn't it? Frank,' Commissars' or ' Commie Czars', what am I supposed to be saying here?"

On an open mike, Fox News Announcer (or Correspondent) Carl Cameron was heard to mutter the above today. Yes, the President of the United States was handed the Nobel Peace Prize today, and, yes, Fox News has it on good authority -- none -- that members of the Nobel Prize committee are both communists and pre-soviet totalitarian royalists, the two not being mutually exclusive in the world of Fox News.

Which is more surprising, the enthusiasm for the Obama Presidency on the Nobel Committee, or the certainty it's the work of a conspiracy by America's number one source of cable news?

OUSTED HONDURAN PRESIDENT ZELAYA WON'T RETURN -- WILL ASSUME GOVERNORSHIP OF SOUTH CAROLINA!

2009-07-01T07:46:00.000-07:00

Former President ZELAYA -- He's the new Governor!

In a cagey bit of state-craft Wednesday, the Obama administration defused two potentially volatile political situations with one move. Gov. Mark Sanford (R) of South Carolina in a bloodless surrender of power in Columbia announced that on Thursday he plans to vacate the remainder of his term. "I hope to devote myself full-time to interviews and a book of love poetry." One he said he's been hankering to write, "for quite some time now."

Meanwhile, President Zelaya will assume Sanford's duties, retaining the option to run for another term in 2010 -- a sticking point in the Honduran upheaval. In agreeing to assume the governorship, Zelaya is seen as avoiding a likely violent confrontation with the military and oligarchs in his native Honduras had he chosen to return.

Former Governor Sanford -- "He's Zelaya!" says his wife

Reports that the former Governor will go back to Honduras himself later this week seeking to serve out the remainder of President Zelaya's term are called 'premature'. An aide said, "Mark's experience with Latin America, though positive, has been very limited up to now. And he's not sure he's prepared to go there yet. In fact, avoiding an armed confrontation -- with his wife Jenny -- was what drove this decision in the first place."

Best Articles On The Economic Crisis / Credit Meltdown

2009-04-06T06:31:00.000-07:00

Here are the best pieces by general consensus on our American-led worldwide economic woes, credit crunch, financial collapse. Up to now. No keywords excluded. All suggestions welcome.

Many will have read much that's here. Finally willing to take a look at the ongoing implosion, it was surprising not to find in googling a single site offerring the best of these worst of times.

Please don't hesitate to recommend links. Articles will be added as they appear. Michael Lewis's Portfolio.com piece is highly recommended.

Portfolio.com: The End Of Wall Streets Boom

Vanity Fair: Wall Street Lays Another Egg

Rolling Stone: The Big Takeover

Atlantic: Why Wall Street Always Blows It

Wired: Recipe For Disaster

Atlantic: How The Crash Will Reshape America: Meltdown Geography

Harry Shearer / Le Show Receive Federal Bailout

2008-11-23T11:13:00.000-08:00

Ahead of the nation's automakers and subprime mortgageholders, humorist Harry Shearer and his Le Show radio program have received a generous bailout package from President-elect Barack Obama. Heard locally on KCRW, 89.9, Santa Monica, Le Show has for the last 16 years depended on two recurrent serials, Clintonsomething and phone calls between 41 and 43 (the senior and junior Georges Bush) for much of its mirth, and audience.

With the election of Barack Obama, Le Show, however, appeared headed for comedic Chapter 11. After all, how far can one go airing Apologies Of The Week? Deprived of its two hit staples, the extent of Le Show's impending woes were only fully revealed this morning when the versatile voice-artist delivered an absolutely 'brown bag' impersonation of the new President. Hopeless.

The nondescript phone-distorted voice of the Illinois senator was heard successfully negotiating with Hillary Clinton to become the next Secretary Of State. The ever-resourceful Shearer, having prevailed upon friends Bill and Hillary to take the cabinet post, then used today's episode to launch a revamped version of one of his most popular long-running satires.

Clintonsomething: The Obama Years will, hopefully, provide Shearer's Sunday morning show with sufficient chuckles to bridge any laugh deficits before the next election cycle. Which begins in early March.

ANOTHER BLACK EYE FOR THE G.O.P.

2008-10-24T19:24:00.000-07:00

McCain Worker Attacked And Brutalized Over Bumper Sticker

Published October 24, 2008

In an incident which seems like it epitomizes much of the anger and bitterness of this election season, a McCain campaign worker from College Station, Texas who was in Pittsburgh helping to work a phone bank was robbed and then attacked, brutalized, and disfigured in what appears to be a politically motivated hate crime...

Police Declare 'Mutilation' of McCain Campaign Worker a Hoax

By Greg Mitchell

Published: October 24, 2008 2:00 PM ET

NEW YORK It had drawn wide local and national -- even political attention, with some of the candidates for president/vice president weighing in or even calling -- but now the story has fallen apart. Police in Pittsburgh have declared it all a hoax, and are charging the McCain worker at the center of the episode...

John Moody, executive vice president at Fox News, commented on his blog that "this incident could become a watershed event in the 11 days before the election. If Ms. Todd’s allegations are proven accurate, some voters may revisit their support for Senator Obama, not because they are racists (with due respect to Rep. John Murtha), but because they suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee. If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain’s quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting."

Hey, GOP! It’s Not Too Soon To Start Pointing Fingers

2008-10-23T07:22:00.000-07:00

Well, it sure looks like McCain has lost. The real question now is how badly and why?

Enthusiasm for a prospective Obama Administration is only exceeded these days by hopes for a very public internecine conflagration in the Grand Old Party. There's so much blame to go around, so many villains -- dupes, incompetents, mush-headed intellectual poseurs, con artists, buffoons, bullies, liars and plain, old hypocrites -- that the circular firing squad will need gatlin guns. And who but the Republicans come well-armed enough for this kind of genocide?

It would require a virtual Encyclopedia Of 21st Century Republican Blunders to tell the whole story. In reverse chronological order one wonders who’s to blame for: The Ayers Strategy, The Palin Choice, The McCain Campaign Suspension To Do Nothing About The Bailout Package, The World Financial Crisis, The Military Failure In Afghanistan, The Iraq War Debacle, The Katrina Disaster, The Global Warming Denials, The 10 Trillion Dollar Deficit, Enron, Energy Deregulation…?

What’s next? Who’s going to lead your party?

What’s the GOP's next new great idea?

Got Ideology? Milk it.

Is Palin the future of your party?

Is Romney?

How bout Mike Huckabee?

Are you set to become the party of the low-information right and hidebound social conservatives too resentful to vote their own self-interest? Or... What other choices do you have?

For a history and credit list of McCain's Campaign Bunglers, see next weekend's New York Times Magazine article, "The Making And (Re)Making Of John McCain"

A powerful and somewhat counter-narrative about the selection of Sarah Palin can be found in Jane Meyer's "The Insiders" piece this week in the New Yorker.

The real story of Sarah's selection will be some time in the making. Clearly, the competing stories have as their essential difference the extent to which John McCain was the agent of or the unwitting victim of her selection.

Someone, whom exactly varies with the version (and neither of these articles even tries to dabe dabes), apparently told the Senator that he could not have his first choice, Joe Lieberman. The real question is who put their foot down, how hard and with what rationale.

The Palin battle for the soul of the party looms as the most interesting and potentially devastating conflict on the GOP horizon. But the number of self-inflicted wounds that her nomination has already caused is heartening.

For example, the doyenne of conservative commentators, the ever-fatuous and dishonest Peggy Noonan who is treated with such undeserved deference and is such an unabashed shill for whatever bullshit is being peddled by the Republicans, has this performance after the Palin-Biden debate to live down.

"She killed"

For Noonan to then write, a few days later in the WSJ, when it was apparent Palin's debate performance was largely a flop:

"In the end the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics. It's no good, not for conservatism and not for the country. And yes, it is a mark against John McCain, against his judgment and idealism."

Makes her over-the-top "assessment" a transparent instance of the kind of tone-deaf, and to a degree ideologically blindered punditry, she has always practiced. Her cred suffers. She, after all, helped give us W., too.

McCain UnAbel

2008-10-11T10:02:00.000-07:00

McCain UnAbel to stop his war machine.

Now we have some inkling of what John McCain's "my fellow prisoners" slip was about. He views himself as surrounded by hostiles. This isn't a unique situation for him. It's likely the reason McCain repeatedly boasts of not having been voted "Miss Congeniality" in the Senate. At heart, McCain is a man who really can't tolerate affiliation. He shamed his father by finishing next to the bottom of his class at the Naval Academy. Short of permanently destroying his own future, one can only guess how tempted he must have been to accept the offer of early release from his captors at the Hanoi Hilton since it also offered him the ultimate opportunity to humiliate his father.

He disdains everybody, that's the kind of "Maverick" McCain is -- no surprise his campaign lurches from scheme to scheme, that it's been criticized for having no governing philosophy. He flies, when he's not crashing, by the seat of his pants.

But in this parallel to the Cain and Abel story, McCain has once again crashed into enemy territory. His palin' around with Palin has him rolling around in the rabble-dregs of his potty. Embraced by the base he hated.

Now that he has them up in arms, he's bearing the mark of Cain. The election is pretty much over, even should there be a terror attack. But in the combustible climate of the current financial meltdown McCain needs to pull ads and publicly retract the Ayers' crap if he wants deniability when the shooting starts. Some trigger happy gangstas should let Cain know he's marked if anything happens to O.. No Keating.

WGP PREDICTS: OBAMA'S VEEP... GOV. ED RENDELL

2008-08-21T09:09:00.000-07:00

May have waited too long to make this prediction. I posted the reasons on WikiAnswers about a week ago.

Recapping, here's why... Gov. Ed Rendell will BE the Vice Presidential nominee.

He of all the name office-holders best serves the most compelling of the Obama campaigns needs. Besides bagging PENNSYLVANIA, he is

1)The least objectionable and probably closest FOB and FOH of the prospects
2)The best demographic fit with OHIO voters
3) Jewish, offering Obama a huge leg up in FLA.
4) He is a middle-class "lunch bucket" moderate who is the former Chairman of the DNC (Unity, unity, unity)
5) His strength is pocketbook domestic issues (bucked Unions and instituted an Rx program in Penn), i.e. he helps most with white middle-class men.
6) His lack of national foreign policy experience is preferrable to being out of touch with working-class white men in an election that will turn on a souring economy.
7) He blows the 'elitist' label out of the water. Particularly if McCain chooses Romney.
8) His having been kept out of the national limelight will make his choice seem an energizing stroke of genius. Which is probably why the 3 dwarves (Kaine, Bayh and Biden) have been so publicly paraded.

RICHARDSON is the other, even greater choice, but the Clintons have probably vetoed his nomination, refusing to let will him to be rewarded for what they regard as his treachery.

Earlier prediction is available at http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Would_Barack_Obama_consider_Rendell_for_VP_running_mate

Top 10 Reasons Hillary Should NOT Be The V.P. Nominee

2008-05-08T12:50:00.000-07:00

If an impartial or inexperienced observer doubted how ruthless, unethical, shameless and destructive the Clintons can be, the last days of her campaign should have now erased any uncertainty.
Having fueled her bankrupt campaign using the kamikaze calculation that she had nothing to lose (that her negative, attacking posture would either result in a victory or force Senator Obama to assume her debts -- the 11 million dollars she loaned her campaign) she’s now attempting through minions like George Stephanopoulos, whose Clinton White House exit was dogged by whispers of proclivities which could account for his servility, to coerce a place on the ticket.

So here are the TOP 10 REASONS WHY HILLARY CLINTON SHOULD NOT BE OFFERED THE VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION

10. The only undisclosed location where she truly feels secure is inside the Oval Office.

9. Socks, the Clinton cat, needs a larger lawn to mark her territory… as does Bill (and to those who say she’s dead, the Clintons point out only the superdelegates can determine that)

8. Though older White Women love her, they make up a smaller proportion of general election voters than in the primaries. And only they, among the voters she scared up in the last phase of the race, are her native constituents. Poorer and less educated whites were, in general, voting a preference and are far more likely to be attracted to a Democratic ticket where the VP-nominee actually appeals to them (e.g., Edwards, Clarke or Jim Webb).

No matter how many boilermakers she pretends to knock back, or how good she gets at pumping gas, these folks are not her folks. And everybody knows it.

7. She should be offered the Vice Presidential nomination after, and only after, Bill Clinton heads off on his critical, four-year fact-finding mission… to Uranus.

6. She brings enormously high negatives. Not only would she, personally, be a drag on the ticket, she comes with heavy baggage. Beyond Bill, the laundry list of suspicious dealings, shady characters and scandals that were scrupulously not trotted out by the Obama campaign, or the media, will be endless aired in the general election.

5. Though 60 to 70 % of all Democrats consistently rated her campaign more negative and attack-oriented, Clinton voters consistently reported they would defect to McCain at higher rates. Typically 30% to 20%. Gee, what could explain it?

How about, she was losing. In other words, childish resentment. Had the situation been reversed the numbers would have been higher, and for cause.

So it's a good index of particular partisans' transient unhappiness with the state of the primaries, but a poor indicator how Democratic voters will behave in the election.

4. The raison d’etre for many Democrats in the primaries was to find an electable candidate who would not carry the deficits of a Bill or Hillary Clinton into the Fall.

Giving her the Vice Presidential nomination utterly and totally defeats the point of his insurgency.

3. If an Obama/Clinton ticket did somehow manage to win the election it would almost certainly lead to a fractious, volatile, divided government, two centers of power with differing constituencies vying in an endless rivalry.

That, in and of itself, would be reason for any unbiased, thoughtful, non-partisan voter to NOT vote for the ticket. Period.

2. The mere fact Hillary Clinton needs the Vice Presidency means she hasn’t, like Lyndon Johnson, been able to achieve a decent working relationship with Senators of even her own party let alone members of the other.

She soiled her nest. Let her clean it up.

She’s a straw dog.

We’ll listen and applaud loudly to her long, rousing primetime speech at the convention.

We will honor her and her husband's long service to the nation.

She should, perhaps, have a voice in choosing the Veep, even some influence on Obama's advisers and cabinet.

But the Number One reason Hillary Clinton can and should be denied a place on the Democratic ticket is...

She lost the goddamn nomination, goddammit!!!

MORMONS HAVE GREAT SECTS

2008-04-17T10:11:00.000-07:00

A nation rubbernecks. Texas

Who's more Waco, the state's child protective services for rounding up 416 people with April 19th fast approaching on the basis of a single phone call placed on a cellphone (i.e., from 'anywhere, u.s.a.), or the co-religionists practicing multiple marriage and statutory rape within?

Compounding a felony

Bill Clinton Comes To Jesus -- "I Love My Wife, But I Support Barack Obama"

2008-03-18T09:07:00.000-07:00

"The speech Senator Obama delivered today -- on Race in America -- was so extraordinary, such a remarkably frank opening toward a healing of our national divides, I have no choice but to acknowledge the obvious and offer my own personal witness to the exceptional opportunity his candidacy provides...

This man, this senator, this Barack Obama is the man this country has long waited for, the man this country needs, the man we, indeed, must elect our next President. I'm sorry, Hillary. I hate to disappoint you. Again. But the truth is the truth, and when the spirit moves us, the flesh must follow..."

IF HILLARY OUTRUNS THE TIDAL WAVE...

2008-02-25T14:10:00.000-08:00

Today, Frank Rich agreed with our post of February 21st, "Hillary's Blunder From Day One"

OPINION February 24, 2008 Op-Ed Columnist: The Audacity of Hopelessness By FRANK RICH "The Clinton camp has been the slacker in this presidential race, and its candidate’s message, for all its purported high-mindedness, is self-immolating."

He goes on to point out that Obama has so far evidenced far and away the superior management skills

And here is another disturbing fact that has also so far gone under reported, ignored, or simply unnoticed. Perhaps in attempting to be balanced no one has noted the main determinant behind the trendline that has been moving in Barack Obama's direction since "Day 1".

The movement of support for Hillary to support for Obama has thus far followed a simple, straightforward information pyramid. A game of telephone.

In fact, it appears to be the only rule support for Obama has obeyed. His growing 'movement' has resisted confinement to the categories on which political bases are normally founded. So far, his appeal has had almost nothing to do with interest groups. Neither race, religion, economic strata, education, nor ethnicity has been relevant in determining where his core support lies

Only one factor has been a reliable predictor -- access to information.

Obama's support has increased obeying a simple metric, moving from those most informed (the college educated) to those less informed to those least informed. The only possible exception might have been his support among African-Americans that took a sudden jump just before and after the South Carolina primary. But Bill Clinton whacked the jungle drum exceedingly hard those days (under an assumption that has always proved true in the past, the more black support a black candidate has the more uneasy white support becomes). That may well account for the sudden dramatic shift to Obama in that community.

If you have any doubt check out the two new polls in Ohio just released today. (Linked below)There's been a big switch in just the last two weeks. At the top of the information totem pole. College-educated voters have gone from +5 for Hillary to +25 for Obama.** (again, see below)

That shift accounts for almost all the gain in the Quinnipiac survey in the last two weeks. And that corresponds to every other shift we've seen. If California's primary were help today Hillary Clinton would lose. Nationally, she's now trailing by a good margin. The Obama wave sweeps over each primary state as the primaries come into focus in each new information micropolis.

The point is this -- even if Hillary Clinton should somehow manage to outrun the information stream long-enough to capture the nomination she will be viewed, ultimately, fairly or not, as undeserving of the nomination. It isn't worth it at that price. Or, certainly, it shouldn't be.

**A Quinnipiac University Poll indicates Clinton's lead over her opponent has slipped to 51 percent to Obama's 40 percent. Less than two weeks before, Clinton was favored 55 percent to Obama's 34 percent. Ohio's primary will be held March 4.

The poll, which surveyed 1,853 registered Ohio voters from Feb. 18-23, shows a particular erosion of support for Clinton among college-educated voters, who favored the candidate 46 percent to Obama's 41 percent earlier in the month. That sector of voters now favors Obama 58 percent to Clinton's 33 percent. http://www.bizjournals.com/dayton/stories/2008/02/25/daily3.html

Hillary's Blunder From Day 1 -- Running Obama's Campaign Pt. 5

2008-02-21T09:17:00.000-08:00

The campaign sound-bite that Senator Clinton has offerred ad nauseum for her candidacy emphasizes her readiness "from Day One" -- ''Both Senator Obama and I would make history, but only one of us is ready on Day 1 to be commander in chief, ready to manage our economy, and ready to defeat the Republicans."

As sloganeering goes, it's sad. It draws attention to a deficit even as it trumpets her main asset. What about "Day Two," and Three, Four and Five..?

Not only is the claim modest, it seems to concede her learning-curve might not be as steep as her opponents'. Should a crisis arise sometime after the first weeks and months of the next President's inauguration, her edge is debateable. But even this claim has been called into question by the on-the-ground reality of the primary season.

Having watched her campaign flounder attempting to find a compelling rationale for her candidacy, or a consistent message, while squandering huge sums of money -- her husband had the temerity to suggest her campaign's under-performance this month was, in fact, over-achieving given it's been run on 'a shoestring' -- it's no longer fair to assume she has any edge over Senator Obama in competency. From Day 1, or otherwise.

In fact, the management of these rather massive political campaigns, both Republican and Democratic, are a very good measure of the candidates aptitudes for governance. They are the biggest executive operations any of them have ever managed. And if people are truly interested in judging their management skills, rather than making empty debating points, you have a pretty fair indication of what to expect.

"What has Barack Obama ever accomplished?"

Well, this campaign season, he and his staff have run a seamlessly efficient operation. Mere competence has triumphed over massive advantages in experience. McCain's campaign went broke, absolutely belly-up, dead in the water. It was the result of a management style that befits him, inattentive delegation to the nuts and bolts of the operation. His professed weakness, a disinterest in economics, reared it's head. It's a style much like George W. Bush's, without the dishonesty.

Hillary's campaign has been plagued by dissension. Not surprising. Conflict is her (and her husband's) metier. This battling and embattled style is further weakened by another design flaw, one that seems to flow from Hillary's own disposition. After all, it was she who blamed "a vast right wing conspiracy" for sabotaging her husband's administration. Consequently, she has surrounded herself, again, by an arrogant, closed circle unable or unwilling to learn from events.

The organization that has appeared most organized?

Judging by his campaign, this guy Obama should run for President.

A famous fighter, Oscar Bonavena, once said of experience, "Experience is like being given a comb after they have shaved your head."

Raw "experience" is over-rated as a crucible of character. Since every morning brings a new day, and each new day entirely new situations, "learning" from experience is a unique aptitude that shows up early, or not at all.

Hillary and John McCain haven't learnt much from their experiences.

IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR THE SKINNY ON OBAMA'S CAMPAIGN STAFF, their bios and positions, scroll down to Running Obama's Campaign, Pt. 3

And the Nominees Are... Or, PUTIN ‘08

2008-02-19T09:55:00.000-08:00

Who will it be, Obama or Hillary? The answer here. Lots of noise and a maze of speculative information plagues the public arena on who is “winning". There are hosts of news organizations whose websites show a variety of pledged and unpledged superdelegate counts. These usually combined with a host of uncertain and widely varying counts of the actual elected delegates.

So how will it be decided? No one is prepared to say for certain, except that no candidate will win enough delegates outright. One scenario being bruited about is that Al Gore and/or perhaps John Edwards and a coven of other party elders, Biden, Dodd, Richardson, will confer and somehow intervene. But the benign Big Brother solution seems wishful. Most likely, to this observer, the writing will eventually be on the wall.

This can only happen once a consensus evolves. And the Democratic delegate-selection debacle – a foray into true representative democracy – has kicked up too much dust to offer any clarity before the Pennsylvania primary. The candidate best able to garner un-electorally earned delegates (Hillary Clinton) will, most likely, find it in their interest to keep the writing from appearing on the wall even then. Given that Sen. Clinton and her husband are the “big dogs” in this fight, short of a knockout, they’ll use the confusion to try and force Sen. Obama to take the Vice Presidential slot and call it the best solution.

The alternative, which may well emerge, particularly if the blogosphere picks up the cry, is to rely on the one fairly stable and certain indication of support – the raw total vote count. See REAL CLEAR POLITICS

Florida’s vote can be included, maybe has to be included. But Michigan’s vote can’t reasonably be credited. This makes the large primaries in Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvance hugely important. Sizable pluralities for Hillary, no matter how the resultant delegate apportionments are reduced by savvy management of resources by the Obama campaign, will get her the raw vote lead and, almost certainly, the nomination.

RUSH LIMBAMA: THE BARACK EFFECT

2008-02-18T17:23:00.000-08:00

What new painkiller is rightwing talk radio jockey Rush Limbaugh sucking on these days?

Today, he announced that, "You know what name would excite me for McCain’s Vice President… Bobby Jindal." Jindal, the India-born newly-installed Governor of Louisiana, has been at his job something like three months.
One can only conclude, since Rush is not a Clinton Kool Aid-drinker, he’s on some powerful drugs of his own. This after he spent weeks excoriating McCain as a poisonous traitor to the conservative Republican bedrock. Here he is announcing, no, declaring excitedly for a moderate, son of the third world who’s been Governor slightly longer than the lifespan of a mayfly. But, what the heck, if you can’t beat them, join them. Has the Obama bug become so powerful that, having stung the racialist religio-fascist Limbaugh, it has produced a case of candidate-envy so strong Limbama is lobbying Republicans to pick someone with even less experience, and a more exotically ‘diverse’ background?

He’ll take any kind of diversity, just so long as its not this Democrat Obama. Tomorrow, my money is that he’ll claim he was joking.

It's the anxiety of influence. Limbaugh's afraid he's about to not have any!

Clinton's Fake Shake-Up -- What Else Is New?

2008-02-12T06:22:00.000-08:00

Hey, the Clinton change in campaign managers (from Patty Solis Doyle to Maggie Williams) is just another slick bit of marketing from the savviest campaign ever to seek a third term as President.

Why do it? And why do it now? Ah, yes. Timing. Tuesday Clinton will lose three more primaries in the "Potomac" region. She just lost Maine after losing Washington, Nebraska and Louisiana.

This change is touted as no change at all. And it isn't. Ms. Williams is just getting a new title and so is Ms. Solis. But it lays the predicate for suggesting, when Hillary wins Texas and Ohio, which she is expected to do, that some wondrous turnabout has occurred.

It doesn't hurt at this point to show her flagging supporters that 'change' is in the air. And she will need all the help she can get from the media by the time Texas and Ohio roll around.

It's making the most of a bad situation. This is the Clinton magic. That they constantly find themselves in 'bad situations' is of their own divisive doing.

What her campaign is most desperately in need of is a 'rationale' -- a reason to vote for her, a reason she's running. But, absent that, manipulating the atmospherics will have to do.

So far, the only 'real' event, the only primary that really varied from the predicted outcome, was New Hampshire. An event which may well have been inflected by Hillary's tears. They were real enough one supposes. But her reason for crying -- that she so desperately wants to do great things for our country -- was transparent baloney which even those moved to sympathy could see through.

What these Clintons might have been had they only been honest...

Running Barack Obama's Campaign Pt. 4

2007-12-23T03:29:00.000-08:00

Watching the Republican Presidential Candidates this year we learn three things...

There is a god!

She's black... And a Democrat!!

Not ruled out

The Truthiness Of Green Nanotech (Pt.- 2)

2007-08-08T07:56:00.000-07:00

As Promised, a follow-on to the previous post. How troubled is the technological panacea of nanotechnology? Well, there's this:

Nanotoxicity: A New Discipline
Dr. Mae-Wan Ho

A fully referenced version of this article is posted on ISIS members’ website. Details here

Nanoparticles – billionths of metre in dimensions - produced by nanotechnology have unusual properties not found in the bulk material, which can be exploited in numerous applications such as biosensing, electronics, photovoltaics, diagnostics and drug delivery. However, research within the past few years has turned up a range of potential health hazards, which has given birth to the new discipline of nanotoxicity.

Researchers in the University of Texas in the United States found that carbon nanotubes squirted into the trachea of mice caused serious inflammation of the lungs and granulomas (tumour-like nodules of bloated white blood cells in the lining of the lungs), and five of the nine mice treated with the higher dose died ("Nanotubes highly toxic", SiS 21) [1, 2].

In a similar experiment carried out at the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health in Morgantown, West Virginia, in the Unites States, researchers not only found granulomas in the lungs, but also damage to mitochondrial DNA in the heart and the aortic artery, and substantial oxidative damage, both foreshadowing atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) [3].

In yet another similar experiment in Tottori University, Japan, researchers showed that within a minute of contacting the mice’s tiniest airways, carbon nanotubes began to burrow through gaps between the surface lining cells and into the blood capillaries, where the negatively charged nanoparticles latched onto the normally positively charged red blood cells surface, thereby potentially causing the red blood cells to clump and the blood to clot [3].

Researchers from the University of Rochester, New York, reported an increased susceptibility to clotting in rabbits that had inhaled carbon nanospheres (buckyballs, an isotope of carbon shaped like a tiny football) [3].

Buckballs present in water at 0.5 parts per million were taken up by largemouth bass, which suffered severe brain damage 48 hours later, the extent of damage being 17 times greater than that seen in controls [4].

Nanoparticles in the lungs are translocated to the circulatory system and from there throughout the body, accumulating in the liver, spleen, and bone marrow [5].

Nanoparticles inhaled through the nose and air passages are translocated to the brain through the olfactory nerves, and accumulate in the brain [5].

Nanoparticles can enter the body through the skin; and quantum dots injected into the skin accumulate in lymph nodes with potential effects on the immune system [5].

Quantum dots consisting of a core of fluorescent cadmium selenide, touted as a non-invasive way to image internal body tissues, break down in the body, releasing cadmium, a toxic heavy metal [6].

In August 2005, the International Council on Nanotechnology (ICON) and Rice University’s Center for Biological and environmental Nanotechnology (CBEN) launched an online database of scientific findings related to the risks as well as benefits of nanotechnology [7]

(http://icon.rice.edu/research.cfm). Searches using common key words such as "quantum dots" and "nanospheres" gave zero returns in September 2005, which shows it is far from adequate and hence could well be misleading.

(POST in progress...)

RUNNING BARACK OBAMA'S CAMPAIGN

2007-02-24T10:41:00.000-08:00

The 1st in an occasional series addressing his supporters and strategists. (UPDATE: If you actually are looking for Who's Running His Campaign go to the post dated July 14th, 2007, RUNNING OBAMA'S CAMPAIGN - Pt. 3, it has that information for you.)

Alright, so here's our first mistake: This household received 3 fundraising calls in two days.

Okay, fine, it's a race about money; moreso this year than ever. But in taking this tack, the Obama campaign cedes ground to the Clintons since it is not opposing moves to hold early primaries in many large states; e.g., moving California's primary up to next February.

Strategists likely advised the Senator these moves, overall, benefit him. Cash is flowing in, he's the other major player; it's simply the smart play. And the judgment has probably been made these moves are nearly impossible to stop. (We aren't so sure.)

So why is it important he oppose it? Senator O may well be able to compete with Hillary for money. Tom Vilsack dropped out yesterday faced with the likelihood there's no place in this race for less well-funded candidates. But there's two HUGE reasons he should resist letting the primary calendar become front-loaded next year and those reasons are:

1) Sen. Obama immediately becomes a "big money," machine candidate and he gets all that goes with it, bed-fellows like David Geffen who's no less sleazy than the Clintons. And Sen. Obama doesn't even get the luxury of time to pick, choose, vett and control these big-time bed crumbs. Which, for example, gets him into an immediate mud-slinging contest.

He also loses a critical opportunity to show political skill and savvy, and to do the right thing electorally. This is the very thing people are desperate to see. To see him stand for something, and organizing supporters around an objective. One with some populist appeal. It's a fight he therefore can afford to lose. Win or lose, it serves his and the country's wider interests.

And 2) the Democrats benefitted hugely in 2004 by having a long, hotly-contested primary race with a host of colorful candidates. Lots of air time, lots of talk. The country got to know the candidates. Kerry was hardly a household name. Neither was Dean. (Admittedly, both disappointed. But it's very difficult to get most Democrats to remember that losing an election to an incumbent War-time President by less than 200,000 votes in one state is astounding and this while the economy was in pretty fair shape, too).

Almost nobody but we political junkies knows who Barack Obama is at the moment. He's inexperienced; he calls it his biggest asset. That's cute. But he, above all, needs the time a dilated primary season would provide not just in name-recognition. He needs to be tested. We all want it. So that he can show that profile in courage. He needs to weather a long, fierce battle with grace and good humor, show endurance and fortitude, even lose and come back.

Letting the political calendar get squished into a month-long campaign awash in TV-ads plays directly into his opponent's hands. You're asking voters to step up and decide right then who should be the Democrat nominee. Winner-Take-All. They get one shot to get it right.

That's Hillary's ticket. In fact, it may be the ONLY chance she has. Asking voters all at once, cash on the barrelhead, to pick the nominee. Her, a known if very troubled quantity, VS. Barry Who?

I think she wins the nomination in that scenario. And the Democrats lose the election.

In that scenario, the Rose law firm, the last-minute pardon of international felons, Monica, Susan McDougal, and Paula Jones don't get mentioned til Hill is on her way to the convention with enough delegates to cinch her nomination and to tell the rest of us to eff off.

Do we really want to forget what the Clintons left us until we're heading toward a general election waiting for those ghosts and skeletons to get rattled by the Republicans?

Time Out For Baseball -- The Bonds (Rx) Prescription

2007-07-17T06:21:00.000-07:00

On the eve of Barry Bonds overtaking Hammerin' Hank for the all-time home run record, the Weekly Green takes time out from its planet-saving duties to address the Great Asterisk Controvery.

Since most fans agree an asterisk not only fails to preserve records achieved under vastly different conditions -- famously, Maris' unofficial "61*" -- we propose a notation that accounts for the "player" not the "record" having been alterred.

For example, using this method the current standings for lifetime HR's would look like this:

1 Aaron..........755
2 Bonds(Rx)..751
3 Ruth............714
4 Mays...........660
5 Sosa(Rx).....602

RUNNING BARACK OBAMA'S CAMPAIGN (PT.3) -- Who IS Running His Campaign?

2007-07-14T10:48:00.001-07:00

Some of you, drawn by our ongoing feature, Running Barack Obama's Campaign, have lately visited this site searching for clues to Obama’s campaign staff.

Good, it’s time people started wondering. Because, frankly, to this point they rate a C-

If you're looking to contact them (hint: find the websites for their consulting firms, email them there) direct them here, too. I’ve listed his team below starting with David Axelrod.

Axelrod’s TV presence has been decidedly underwhelming. A low-watt, not very suave media presence, he delivers determinedly content-free spin. Is that the strategy, to dance while Hillary closes in on the nomination? Described as "the strategist at Obama’s right hand, perhaps the best-known Democratic consultant working outside of Washington, D.C., equally adept at sensing the right metaphor for high-minded aspirations and at finding the vulnerable spot to savage an opponent," none of those qualities has yet been on display.

Besides fundraising, what is there? Where are the articulate, passionate public policy addresses? Lincoln left a raft of writings from barnstorming speeches prior to his election that gave every indication he was, in the Emersonian sense, a Representative Man. Brilliant analyses of the constitutional questions of the day.

Barack Obama needs to do something similar. There's plenty to talk about. For example...

With the next election ours for the losing, Democrats can’t rest. Some big-time inoculation is needed immediately in the ever-so-likely event of another terror attack.

That means a rhetorical preventive strike. He needs to say LOUDLY and repeatedly that the country remains in jeopardy, that the politically unglamorous work of dismantling terror cells, of penetrating and neutralizing our enemies has yet to be done. That this administration's decision to fight a noisy, unnecessary war rather than focus on that difficult, secret work has left us more, not less vulnerable. While we've been fortunate not to have had a terror attack since 9/11, this administration has made the job of drying up support for Al Qaeda and rolling up its organizational base that much more difficult. But it's a job that must be done, and he intends to make certain it gets done.

America needs to know the terrorists love these Republicans the way Fire loves Gasoline.

They, the terrorists, more than anyone else have benefitted from this administration's ham-fisted approach, so we should not be surprised when they do everything in their power, including another terror attack, to bring another version of Geo. W. Bush back in ’08.

Okay, the rest of the Obama campaign team seem to be ...

Robert Gibbs, communications director, a campaign veteran;

David Plouffe, an Axelrod partner who worked on Obama's 2004 Senate campaign;

Bill Burton, national press secretary for the House Democrats' midterm campaign;

Julianna Smoot, finance director for John Edwards' 2004 campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 2006

Peter Giangreco, a Chicago-based media consultant and veteran of the Iowa caucuses;

Cassandra Butts, who first met Obama at the financial aid office at Harvard;

Betsy Myers, chief operating officer. Executive director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government (and sister of Dee Dee Myers, Clinton's first press secretary)...

But the group most tightly circled around Obama is a longstanding one, made up of old friends who share an understanding of how he works. Key players include straight-talking Valerie Jarrett, a veteran of Chicago Democratic circles and John Rogers, head of Ariel Capital Management, a friend of Michelle Obama's brother Craig Robinson, with whom Rogers played basketball at Princeton…

If Barry isn’t up to honing his sound-bite rhetoric he might just as usefully be letting us see his thinking in crafted addresses. Fundraising does not a campaign make.