We took a family trip to Philadelphia. HM is a huge fan of 1776, so we visited all the places where our earliest history happened and had an enjoyable wallow in patriotism and nostalgia for a time when all the problems seem more simple (because someone has already solved most of them).

While we were there, HM and I went to a get-together of bloggers thrown by Jim (who is my dutch uncle despite being younger than I am) and a very nice young couple named Black (she's HM's new friend).

Also present: Susie Madrak (Suburban Guerrilla); Fred, who is tall (Slacktivist); Lambert, likewise (Corrente); Bruce, who has a deck (The Story So Far); Adam (Throwing Things); Melanie (Just a Bump In the Beltway); Mithras (Fables of the Reconstruction); Paul (The AWOL Project); Danny (No Loss For Words) and Julie (Nasty Riffraff).

Liberal bloggers have, so you know, great hair.

They're charming and smart and funny online too.

City Hall, which was outside our hotel room window (well, still is, probably), really does look like Anna Nicole Smith's wedding cake, but in a good way.

picnic-goers crowded around the Dunk the Biological Urge booth

Prison officials said Monday they are considering using psychological warfare, including large jailhouse barbecues in order to wet the prisoner's appetites and break up the hunger strike.

pretend I hung a Gone Fishing sign three days ago, k?

A former codebreaker for the OAS, Julia Child made inventive, sensible and satisfying gourmet food accessible to Americans who had thought it was beyond their reach.

Raise a fork.

"Because of media hype and woefully inadequate information, too many people nowadays are deathly afraid of their food, and what does fear of food do to the digestive system? ... I, for one, would much rather swoon over a few thin slices of prime beefsteak, or one small serving of chocolate mousse, or a sliver of foie gras than indulge to the full on such nonentities as fat-free gelatin puddings."

"The pleasures of the table - that lovely old-fashioned phrase - depict food as an art form, as a delightful part of civilized life. In spite of food fads, fitness programs, and health concerns, we must never lose sight of a beautifully conceived meal."

Judith Miller has been subpoenaed in the Plame leak

A reporter for The New York Times, Judith Miller, was subpoenaed yesterday by a Washington grand jury investigating the disclosure of the identity of a C.I.A. undercover officer to the syndicated columnist Robert Novak and other journalists.

The subpoena to Ms. Miller was only the most recent of a series issued to journalists in a politically sensitive inquiry that has on several occasions led investigators to question White House officials.

Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher of The Times, said the paper would move to quash the subpoena to Ms. Miller, issued at the behest of Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor heading the investigation.

"We regret that the special prosecutor has chosen to issue a subpoena that seeks to compel Judy Miller to reveal her confidential sources," Mr. Sulzberger said. "Journalists should not have to face the prospect of imprisonment for doing nothing more than aggressively seeking to report on the government's actions. Such subpoenas make it less likely that sources will be willing to talk candidly with reporters and ultimately it is the public that suffers.''

Isn't that touching.

For the record, I think it's important for reporters and their employers to be willing to protect sources if they see fit. I also think they should be willing to take the consequences of that choice.

The Times has done this before. Last time it was to expose an administration who lied about a war that was killing our soldiers.

If they think that protecting one is equally worthy of civil disobedience, have at it.

In either case, there are few reporters who have been more consciously an active partner with their sources. Ms. Miller's work has tracked her work with the think tanks behind the war with stunning frequency. From her 'work' on the WMDs before the war to giving orders to the unit she was embedded in, she's been far more a partisan participant than a reporter.

Couldn't happen to a nicer girl, is what I'm getting at.

Just a reminder - the folks who are trying to retake the House can use a few bucks, if you have some to spare.

You may not know it, but you're already paying for the GOP campaign, as well as for the guards who make sure that you can't get in to the events you're paying for.

Now not only is Chalabi in bed with Iran, he's turning down the sheets for al-Sadr (you know, the every drop of blood to defeat us guy)

Despite the day's troubles, there were signs that Mr. Chalabi might be enjoying the new attention. In an appeal to poor Shiites, his staff printed posters with his face and the words, "We'll be back to stop the massacre at Najaf," the city where the rebel Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr has been under siege by American and Iraqi forces since last week.

As for Mr. Chalabi's relationship with Mr. Sadr, Mr. Musawi said that the two men "are not that close. Yet."

Boy, can those war supporters pick their credible sources or what.

On the nephew front, Salem Chalabi, who was handpicked by the US to try Saddam, doesn't think Judge al-Maliky's authority is legitimate, because, he says, the judge was was - er - picked by the US to try him.

via the other Roger Ailes

I'm a little confused by something in the McGreevey case

WABC-TV of New York reported that McGreevey was expecting a lawsuit by a former aide accusing him of sexual harassment. The station identified the former aide as Golan Cipel, who resigned as McGreevey’s security adviser in 2002 after months of questioning about his credentials and job qualifications.

A former Israeli sailor and a published poet, Cipel, 33, was criticized because he did not have a security clearance or law enforcement background. He had worked in television news and public relations.

So McGreevey gave a high-profile job to someone who had no obvious qualifications for it and then he asked him for sex?

Sort of leaves you wondering how negotiable this lawsuit was.

Everybody still think it was clever of the Republicans to spend all that money to give this man a platform? Ben Stein? Anybody?

Ralph Nader, that master of controversy, has a new bete noire: the Anti-Defamation League. The independent presidential candidate has become embroiled in an ugly exchange with the Jewish organization, after he suggested that President Bush and Congress were "puppets" of the Israeli government.

"The days when the chief Israeli puppeteer comes to the United States and meets with the puppet in the White House and then proceeds to Capitol Hill, where he meets with hundreds of other puppets, should be replaced," Nader said earlier this summer. That prompted an angry letter from the league, which complained that the "image of the Jewish state as a 'puppeteer,' controlling the powerful US Congress feeds into many age-old stereotypes which have no place in legitimate public discourse."

Der ewige jude, eh Ralph?

It's been done.



Why, for what purpose is the blood flowing?
Behind the scenes, the Jew grins.
That makes the answer clear:
They bleed for the Jews.

the color-blind party makes a play for the racial-division vote

A group financed by a major Republican contributor has begun running radio ads in about a dozen cities, many in battleground states, attacking Sen. John F. Kerry as "rich, white and wishy-washy" and mocking his wife for boasting of her African roots.

The D.C.-based group, People of Color United, has substantial financial backing from J. Patrick Rooney, the former chairman of Golden Rule Insurance Co. and the founder of a new firm, Medical Savings Insurance Co. Both firms specialize in medical savings accounts, created by Republican-backed 1996 legislation, and health savings accounts, which were created by President Bush's 2003 Medicare prescription drug legislation.

One of the radio ads addresses Kerry's failure to vote on a bill to extend unemployment benefits for 13 weeks: "It needed 60 votes to pass. Ninety-nine out of 100 senators voted -- Kerry did not! It lost by one vote! Maybe Kerry thought the more of us who are unemployed and hurting, the more likely we would vote Democrat."

Another ad attacks Teresa Heinz Kerry, who, at the Democratic convention last month cited her birth and upbringing in Mozambique and who has described herself as African American. In the radio commercial, the announcer says: "His wife says she's an African American. While technically true, I don't believe a white woman, raised in Africa, surrounded by servants, qualifies."

...

Rooney, who is white, said in an e-mail response to an inquiry from The Washington Post: "I support [the] group because the genuine word from the black community should be heard, not white folks saying for them."

Rooney also points out that the congregants at his church elected him to the board over the heads of "other black people"

Presumably the other black people weren't extremely rich.

Howie Kurtz critiques Washington Post coverage of the runup to the war:

Bush, Vice President Cheney and other administration officials had no problem commanding prime real estate in the paper, even when their warnings were repetitive. "We are inevitably the mouthpiece for whatever administration is in power," DeYoung said. "If the president stands up and says something, we report what the president said." And if contrary arguments are put "in the eighth paragraph, where they're not on the front page, a lot of people don't read that far."

Inevitable. Like the sunrise. Except for that eight years four years or so ago.

This makes me happy.

A voter in Louisiana is filing a legal challenge to defective Congressman Rodney Alexander's ballot qualification, and seeks an injunction preventing the Secretary of State from issuing ballots printed with his name. The petition, filed by a voter and based on both Louisiana statute and prior precedent, rightly argues that Alexander's SECOND filing 20 minutes before the deadline is in effect a withdrawal of his candidacy under Louisiana law since candidates are prohibited from amending their ballot qualification in any way once it has been made. Others in Louisiana have been tossed for just this kind of behavior in the past. Look for a news releases from multiple parties soon...

Due, as so many unfortunate things in Texas politics are, to a slight delay, Texas Tuesday is being held today.

I'm particularly interested in these races, because any retention or gains the Democrats manage down there are a direct slap in the face to the Texas Republican party who brought us redistricting, Tom DeLay and Our Fearless Leader himself.

Take a look.

Remember that nice Rep. Alexander? The one who switched parties fifteen minutes before the cutoff to make it one seat harder to take back control of the House of Representatives?

Susie says he's all hurt 'cause people are mad at him.

Unfortunately, we can pretty much assume that whatever considerations he's getting from his new friends matter far more to him than what his constituents think or he wouldn't have done it in the first place.

What would really hurt him is not getting all the candy he jumped the fence for, and the only way we can manage that is to make sure that the people he's in bed with don't control the House.

The last thing we need is for this kind of garbage to look like a good career move.

The DCCC is raising money to make Rep. Alexander's life difficult, and I think we really should. If you can't donate money, they're also looking for volunteers (and they can find something for you to do that fits into your life, already in progress).

We just can't have these people running the country. It's like having a delinquent kid tearing around with your credit card buying things you don't approve of. Eventually the bills come.

I can't afford to pay them myself, and why the hell should I? Why the hell should you?

This is much cheaper.

Thanks.

Lisa "suffer the children" Whelchel (Discipline involves "drawing a line to protect the child," Whelchel said, "and if they cross that line, there will be pain."), former talentless child actress and current religious homeschooling entrepreneur, has made hot-saucing children's tongues a Christian [sic] childraising trend.