The International Olympic Committee has upheld a ban on Iraqi teams at the Beijing Games, saying Thursday the government missed the deadline to address accusations of political interference.

The IOC decision culminates a drawn-out internal feud in Iraq that many see as an extension of Shiite payback to Sunnis who once held a cozy niche in Saddam Hussein's regime.

In May, the government dissolved the National Olympic Committee. Among the claims was it was illegitimate because it lacked a legal quorum -- but four members of the committee, including its chief, were kidnapped two years ago and their fates are unknown.

There is also a potential sectarian rift. Iraq's Youth and Sports Ministry is dominated by Shiites, while the NOC includes several holdovers from the Saddam-era Olympic Committee, once run by his feared eldest son, Odai.

The Obama team is working on his transition into the WH.

"With less than six months to go before he would be sworn in as the nation's 44th president, Sen. Barack Obama has directed his aides to begin planning for the transition."

He's making a federal case out of it, too.

I'm not going to download Little Rudy's complaint, because the article says it's 198 frickin' pages long.  I have to say this - the longest federal complaint I ever filed was 58 pages long and it had a lot - too much, said the judge when he told us to replead it - of facts pleaded in it.  So, I'm dying to find out what could possibly have been so bad about getting kicked off the college golf team without a reason being given that it took 198 pages to say it.  And, who the lawyer he hired is and why this lawyer went about it this way.

And then, says the suit, the coach said young Giuliani had to get a letter from each member of the golf team saying they wanted him back, before the coach would take him back.

Now, I'm not the best at interpersonal dynamics and being a coach of an athletic team, but it seems pretty obvious that Giuliani must have seriously alienated someone - and maybe the whole team - with something he said, did or didn't do.  I mean, this is something that would be done to discipline a 4th grader who'd behaved badly.  So, why was young Giuliani turned into a pariah?

Here's the article from a Duke paper.  Some of the comments are priceless - I commend them to you.  (Psst - everyone's sure 9/11 had something to do with it....)

McCain chimed in that it is never inappropriate to visit wounded servicemen and women...

Dateline Parchman, MS - Dale Leo Bishop was executed last night:

"For those who oppose the death penalty and want to see it end, our best bet is to vote for Barack Obama because his supporters have been working behind the scenes to end this practice."

Four Star Surrogate.

I hope they bring him back into the fold. The hell with a bunch of hanky wringing hissy artists. This guy is necessary.

I've got three questions:

1.  Is there some kind of setting that will correctly indent parent/child comments, because sometimes it seems to get wonky.  Oh.  New thought:  or is that it just gets a little weird when comments are deleted?

2.  Anybody know where can I go to find out the status of Senator Clinton's campaign debt?

3.  re:  Senator Clinton and the convention.  What is the difference between having "her name on the ballot" and having her name "put into nomination" at the convention.

A new poll out Thursday shows strong support for Sen. Barack Obama among Latinos.

Obama's approval rating with registered Latino voters, the nationwide Pew Hispanic Center poll found, is at 66 percent versus 23 percent favoring McCain.

Obama's "strong showing in this survey represents a sharp reversal in his fortunes from the primaries, when Obama lost the Latino vote to Hillary Clinton by a margin of nearly 2-to-1," according to Pew Hispanic Center associate director Mark Hugo Lopez.