Isaac Hayes, Academy and Grammy Award winner, died this afternoon at the age of 65.

His music, which came to be known as urban-contemporary, paved the way for disco as well as romantic crooners like Barry White. And in his spoken-word introductions and interludes, Hayes was essentially rapping before there was rap. His career hit another high in 1997 when he became the voice of Chef, the sensible school cook and devoted ladies man on the animated TV show "South Park."

"Isaac Hayes embodies everything that's soul music," Collin Stanback, an A&R executive at Stax, told The Associated Press on Sunday. "When you think of soul music you think of Isaac Hayes -- the expression ... the sound and the creativity that goes along with it."

The video above is the wonderful Isaac Hayes version of "Walk On By," the Burt Bacharach song made famous by Dionne Warwick. You can go here if you prefer to remember Hayes by listening to his award-winning "Theme From Shaft."

This is an open thread.

RIP Bernie Mac.

Big Tent Democrat is taking the weekend off from blogging. I'm taking the day off. I'm not sure what TChris is up to.

Here's a an open thread for you. Keep it civil and I'll be back in time for tonight's Olympics. Hopefully, we won't have "technical difficulties" like we did last night from a rain storm. Neil Young:

Look at Mother Nature on the run in the 20th Century.

Via Avedon at Sideshow, longtime political blogger Skimble is packing it in and closing up shop.

I have ceased to care about McStupid's Britney video and Obama's acting presidency. Or the New Yorker cover. Or Cindy McCain's 20 painkillers a day. Or the endless hand-wringing about the f**king narrative. The 24/7 minutiae of yet another artificial campaign horserace cannot captivate me. The big story is this....

Go read the rest, it's a well-deserved attack on the Dems, Harry and Nancy in particular.

This has been a lackluster, ho-hum election campaign since May when the primaries ended. I doubt it will pick up. Obama is just not as exciting to cover as he was when he had Democrats as competitors and McCain would put anyone to sleep.

It is what it is. From here on out, both candidates will play to the middle. The rest of us, right and left, will be marginalized. [More...]

I'm gone for the rest of the afternoon. Here's an open thread for you to take over the discussion. All topics welcome, please be civil.

What's up with Maureen Dowd? Now she's suggesting American women, specifically those who supported Hillary, dislike Obama and won't for him. Her reasons are rather odd. First she compares Obama to romantic figures in Pride and Prejudice and Bridget Jones' Diary, saying women think Obama is arrogant and prideful, then she says it's because he's too skinny and then she makes it all about race.

I hate when writers paint with too broad a brush. I haven't heard a single woman say they would never vote for a man again.

I'm a former Hillary supporter who will gladly vote for Obama over McCain or a third party candidate. Taylor Marsh, among the most ardent Hillary supporter on the blogs during the primaries responds, criticizing the Hillary supporters who can't move on: [More...]

Your turn.

Gnarls Barkley is scheduled to perform at Lollapalooza tomorrow.

What makes you crazy?

Your turn.

Update: Sitemeter is causing blogs to crash in Internet Explorer 7. Try using Firefox or Safari, it works fine in those.

Update: Skippy is having different problems, blogger has blocked his site as spam. For those of you looking for his site, it's temporarily here at Skippy, Jr.

As an aside, Facebook disabled TalkLeft's page, it's now two days and no explanation. Sometimes the internets just suck.

Update: Susie at Suburban Guerilla is laid off and needs 3 operations and her insurance is running out. If you can send a few bucks her way, that would be great.

It's hot in Denver...104 degrees today. Too hot to even search for a unique summer song. Summer in the City, Heat Wave, even Boys of Summer, I'm tired of them.

Here's Bryan Adams and The Summer of '69...at least it rocks.

This is an open thread.

Sen. Barack Obama got heckled today while giving a speech in Florida. The hecklers were African Americans who wanted to know why he hasn't spoken out for the AA community. The audience booed the hecklers, and to Obama's credit, he gave them an opportunity during the q and a following his talk to ask a question:

"My question is, in the face of the numerous attacks that are made against the African community, or the black community, by the same U.S. government that you aspire to lead," the man started, before naming sub-prime lending, police shootings of blacks, the Jena 6 case and Hurricane Katrina.

"In the face of all these attacks that are clearly being made on the African community, why is it that you have not had the ability to not one time speak to the interests and even speak on behalf of the oppressed and exploited African community, or black community, in this country?" he asked. As some in the audience booed, Obama started his response.

Obama's answer below:

Your turn.

Our earlier open thread is full, and it seems like people have a lot to vent about today. Here's another thread, all topics welcome, just please keep it civil.