I'm watching Federer-Nadal. Nadal up an early break in the first set.

Rain delay with Nadal leading 2 sets to none - 6-4, 6-4, 4-5 (on serve in the 3rd).

12:55 EST, match to resume momentarily.

Federer wins 3rd set tiebreaker on the back of 4 aces, 7-5.

Federer wins 4th set tiebreaker 10-8, staving off two championship points.

5th set, 1-1, deuce, rain threatening. 2-2, deuce. Rain delay. Play to resume momentarily. 6-6 in the 5th. No tiebreakers in the 5th.

Nadal breaks for 8-7. Serving for the championship. Nadal wings a forehead long. New balls? Nerves? Serve and volley for 15-15. Big forehand sets up easy volley for Nadal. 2 points way. Federer evens at 30-30. Feder misses backhand. Nadal has his 3rd championship point. Fed saves with an impossible backhand return. Service winner. Another championship point.

NADAL WINS! 9-7 in the 5th. Unbelievable match. What a look on Fed's face. he can not believe it.

This is an Open Thread.

In response to the request for a new open thread, here it is.

And in keeping with the weekend's celebration of American history and values:

Virginia is a distant second to Texas in the number of executions carried out since 1976. The trend in Virginia has slowed recently. Why? Among the many reasons, this one should give everyone pause:

Jon Gould, director of the Center for Justice, Law and Society at George Mason University, thinks prosecutors may be more cautious in seeking the death penalty because he said the state has had 12 wrongful convictions for rape or murder since the late 1990s.

It's good to see a fair and balanced article about the death penalty in The Washington Times. Conservatives do not uniformly support the death penalty. Traditional conservatives have always distrusted government. [more ...]

There are young Americans like this all over the nation. These two are from Indianapolis:

[George] Srour, 24, was inspired by a Second Presbyterian Church speech given by local civic leader Jim Morris, who at the time was running the United Nations World Food Program. Srour landed an internship with the agency and saw schools in Uganda that didn't have walls or a roof. He raised $35,000 from fellow students at the College of William & and Mary for the first school building. His organization, Building Tomorrow, finished two more schools last month. ...

[Rachel] Sparks, 25, started her film work after learning about girls sold into prostitution in Thailand. She led a small group of young adults to Thailand last year to make a $75,000 documentary.

Remember the Me Generation? Sparks thinks today's 20-somethings belong to a more inclusive, less self-indulgent world. [more ...]

Barack Obama is puzzled:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Saturday his plan to end the Iraq war was unchanged and he was puzzled by the sharp reaction to his statement this week that he might "refine" his timetable for withdrawing U.S. combat troops. . . . "I was a little puzzled by the frenzy that I set off with what I thought was a pretty innocuous statement," he said on a flight from Montana to St. Louis. "I am absolutely committed to ending the war. I will call my joint chiefs of staff in and give them a new assignment and that is to end the war." . . .Obama said he did not make a mistake Wednesday with his choice of words in describing his Iraq position -- even though he called a second news conference a few hours after his initial comments to clarify his stance. He laid the blame with reporters.

"I'm surprised at how finely calibrated every single word was measured. I wasn't saying anything I hadn't said before, that I didn't say a year ago or when I was a United States senator," said Obama, who is still a senator from Illinois.

Let me see if I can explain it to Senator Obama on the flip.

If Sen. Barack Obama moves his acceptance speech from the Pepsi Center to Invesco field, he'll need 76,000 people to fill the seats.

Only 50,000 are expected in town for the convention. Many in Denver will be doing their best to avoid downtown that week. I think they need a concert. Remember the 75,000 crowd in Portland, OR? They had Obama follow a free outdoor concert by the Decembrists which was planned in advance with his campaign.

Question: Who will it be? For reasons explained below, Bruce Springsteen, Sheryl Crow, Bonnie Raitt, Melissa Etheridge and Stevie Wonder come to mind. Will it be one huge band or a few smaller and diverse groups? [More...]

Because they listen to people like Nancy Soderberg (for a more thorough evisceration of Ms. Soderberg's nonsense, see Glenn Greenwald):

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democrats' presumptive presidential candidate, said it was a close call but he had decided to endorse the bill. As he explained, the bill won't allow the president to "suggest that somehow there's some law that stands above the laws passed by Congress in engaging in warrantless wiretaps." The rest of the party should follow Obama's lead.

Besides being false, the current FISA law ALREADY "won't allow the President to 'suggest there's some law that stands above the laws passed by Congress in engaging warrantless wiretaps,'" it is political stupidity. It creates stories like this:

Saying this was not outrageous at one time:

[Fox's Mort Kondracke said] "It does not qualify you to be the commander in chief of all the Armed Forces because you were a Swift boat commander." And Kathleen Parker: "[M]ilitary service neither qualifies nor disqualifies one for political office."

This year it is. Read Jamison Foser's whole post. Get a feel for what political cowards Dems are and what they take from the Media and the GOP.

And a note. In my threads, asking how people will vote is a deletable offense. Do not do it anymore.

This is an Open Thread.

Both Barack Obama and John McCain have a closetful of flip flops on issues. What is interesting about the flip flops is McCain has flip flopped towards the right - on the Bush tax cuts, on torture, on immigration, on everything. There is no moving to the "middle" for McCain. There is only moving to the far right. He is really running for Bush's third term. Obama's flip flops have him moving to the right as well, aligning him closer to Bush's third term, instead of making clear he will be a break from the extremism of the Bush years.

It is as if Obama has an inner Dick Morris he is listening to. McCain playing to his base will not be covered as pandering. Obama should consider that for a moment. That perhaps honoring his own base will be seen as a moment of strength for him. In Nigel Hamilton's book on Bill Clinton, "Mastering the Presidency", Hamilton describes the inner cowardice of Morris, who advised Clinton to cave in to Newt Gingrich even though Morris' own polling told him that Clinton was winning that battle in political terms:

I watched Gonzo yesterday -- twice. (Make that three times, once to be able to write this post.) Details of the film about Hunter S. Thompson that opened nationally on July 4th are in my earlier post here.

The first time I watched it on a personal level. The second time I watched it for some political and historical comparisons to today. My thoughts on both are below. [More...]

Via mcjoan, Senator Frank Church:

Personal privacy is protected because it is essential to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Our Constitution checks the power of Government for purposes of protecting the rights of individuals, in order that all our citizens may live in a free and decent society. . . . When government infringes those right instead of nurturing and protecting them, the injury spreads far beyond the particular citizens targeted to untold numbers of other Americans who may be intimidated...

The natural tendency of government is toward abuse of power. Men entrusted with power, even those aware of its dangers, tend, particularly when pressured, to slight liberty. Our constitutional system guards against this tendency. It establishes many different checks upon power. It is those wise restraints which keep men free. In the field of intelligence those restraints have too often been ignored....

More . . .

Neil Young sends us a Fourth of July gift:

In the spirit of Independence Day, Shakey Pictures is airing this special web video for the 4th of July weekend. For best results, we suggest that you connect your computer to a good set of speakers, set your volume on LOUD and fire up the BBQ.

Let Freedom Ring!

(Keep on) Rockin' in the Free World, performed live with Crosby, Stills and Nash.

You might also enjoy clicking "Music Video" here.