Not saying I agree with this meme, just that I expect it to be a line used over and over again in the months to come.

She may be well known but first I've heard of her -

I feel like telling him, "no honey, Hurricane Katrina was a disaster, this is just a bad night."

Nobody died because somebody fell off a balance beam.

The entire time he's racing the announcers are like "watch, this is going to be so incredible!" "you're seeing history made!"  It gets to the point where whatever actually happens can't help but be anticlimactic.  Dick Vitale would be calmer.

What made this guy's arguments SOUND strong is that he challenged the people that disagreed with him (who he was talking about) to debate him.  Of course since they weren't listening or for many other reasons they will never debate this guy, he comes of sounding stronger.   This got me thinking.  It seems that simple organization could counter this nonsense.  This is my organizational idea, tell me what you think (or even tell me if it exists).  

The idea is set up a website with the dates, times these conservative radio hosts are on the air (both national and local).  You could select a person you are going to listen to and call in to debate.  Selecting the person would allow the organization to see who was not being targeted, as well as re-direct people to particular radio shows to reach critical mass of debaters to flood their lines.   The goal would not be to convince the radio host, but to show their listeners that being pro choice isn't being pro murder (NOTE- I explained this to someone who thought he was against choice, telling him that it was a lie that anyone was giving abortions a few weeks before birth unless the mother's life was in danger, he completely changed his tune and his "side").    If their producer turned down the caller, the caller would go to the website and note this, so that these hate mongers true fear of openly debating people could be calculated and used against them.  
Of course this organization could be used to promote many progressive issues.
I know there are people who individually do this now, but this would be a very inexpensive way to combat this right wing nonsense in a coordinated fashion.

Tonight I was sitting on my flagstone patio (in a chair, natch) when I saw my old cat (he's 17) in a hunting posture. It takes a lot to get this old kitty to pay attention to possible prey - he's old, he's well fed, he's pretty much past his mighty hunter wild kingdom days. Even then, he preferred mice to birds.

I looked where he was looking and saw a hummingbird near the blossoming agastache (hummingbird mint, no duh). It's the first time I've seen a hummingbird in my garden in nearly 17 years in Denver.

Now I know fall is not far off because hummingbirds only pass through here in spring and fall on their way to and from the mountains.

But Kreider said she is certain she didn't hit the "volunteer" box on the online application. Still, Kreider got a message telling her that she had to do six hours of volunteer work by Friday if she wanted a chance at a ticket. Kreider said she will not do the work.

"Absolutely not," she said. "Now, it's pure principle. I was a Hillary Clinton supporter, and this is literally my first touch with the Obama campaign. And it's just disappointing."

Now, I know the man is evil, but he is an evil genius and can play presidential politics pretty well.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey confirmed plans yesterday to loosen post-Watergate restrictions on the FBI's national security and criminal investigations, saying the changes were necessary to improve the bureau's ability to detect terrorists.

[snip]

Mukasey said the new rules "remove unnecessary barriers" to cooperation between law enforcement agencies and "eliminate the artificial distinctions" in the way agents conduct surveillance in criminal and national security investigations.

"There was clear-eyed and bipartisan recognition after the attacks that we needed to be able - and allowed - to collect intelligence in the United States," he said in a speech prepared for an anti-terrorism conference in Portland, Ore. "Indeed, there was a loud demand for it."

[snip]

"Under the new guidelines, the investigative steps that the FBI may take in a particular investigation will not be driven by irrelevant factors, such as the type of paperwork the agent uses to open the investigation," he said.

In addition, agents assigned to national security investigations will be given more latitude to conduct surveillance based on a tip. Also, agents will be permitted to search more databases than allowed previously in criminal cases. As it stands now, agents who get a tip about a possible organized crime figure cannot use certain databases that they are allowed to access in national security cases, such as those containing information about state-issued drivers' licenses.

[snip]

Mukasey said he planned to consult with Congress about the rules before releasing them. Nonetheless, Mukasey provided enough detail yesterday to alarm civil libertarians.

Michael German, a former veteran FBI agent who is now policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said if Mukasey moves ahead with the new rules as he describes them, he'll be weakening restrictions originally put in place after the Watergate scandal to rein in the FBI's domestic Counter Intelligence Program, or COINTELPRO. At the time, the FBI spied on American political leaders and organizations deemed to be subversive throughout the late 1950s and into the 1960s.

"I'm concerned with the way the attorney general frames the problem," German said. "He talks about 'arbitrary or irrelevant differences' between criminal and national security investigations but these were corrections originally designed to prevent the type of overreach the FBI engaged in for years."

In it he makes this statement

"If bad blood between the Clinton and Obama camps persists, it's highly unlikely that an Obama defeat this fall would lead inexorably to a Clinton nomination the next time. Obama's shrewd announcement Wednesday of former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner as the convention keynote speaker has a bearing on this. It not only gives a central role to a moderate Democrat from a swing state, it also points to a future that transcends the Clinton-Obama feud."

------------------------------------------------

When will the pundits finally realize that the Clinton supporters that are not moving towards supporting Obama are not going to be moved towards supporting Obama with Obama's strategy of continuing "shrewd" actions that are designed to make the Clintons irrelevant in the future?

When that failed Russia entered South Ossetia. I do not know if they were poised to enter or even in the tunnel at the time, but they did wait, did try to use the UN.

Per Moon of Alabama's poster, b, and this from the AP (link in post):

At the request of Russia, the U.N. Security Council held an emergency session in New York but failed to reach consensus early Friday on a Russian-drafted statement.

The council concluded it was at a stalemate after the U.S., Britain and some other members backed the Georgians in rejecting a phrase in the three-sentence draft statement that would have required both sides "to renounce the use of force," council diplomats said.

Commenter b real (8/8, 10:56:58) has quotes from Inner City Press's blogging of that emergency UN Security Council session. Wow, there are bloggers who cover everything!

b points out this is the same game plan the US used when Israel was invading Lebanon. And that worked out so well!

Also, Saak. had announced a ceasefire the Thursday before the opening of the Olympics and then launched the attacks that night. Nefarious much?

What I find fascinating, in a frightening way, is that the MCM ran with The Narrative of poor invaded blameless Georgia immediately. It was like watching a much abbreviated version of the run up to the Iraq Invasion: Get the maladministration story out there, repeat, repeat, repeat. Ignore as long as possible any facts which do not fit The Narrative. Get the public to hate the Enemy, support the Maladministration's favored one(s).

Early on, some news was filtering through--I heard from callers to WNYC who read Russian some of the Russian story, which in this case seems to have been the accurate story. Also some talked about bloggers' info from the two countries. But the MCM? They new The Narrative.

LINK

Ever since Glenn Greenwald got Joe Klein to admit that he was too lazy to commit actual journalism and preferred to shoot his mouth off without understanding the bill he was bashing Democrats over, I wrote Klein off as worthless at best.  Now he's a netroots hero?  (Let's ask Kos - here's his take on JK - tool of the GOP.)