It's raining McCain. Unfortunately.

Via Matt Yglesias, I found this video. The first comment on his site sums up the reaction:

I wish you had been post-less. If I ever meet you Matt Y, I will punch you in the face for subjecting me to this.

So be forewarned:

Pretty much ruins that song forever. It's no Hillary4UandMe. Read More......

I never liked Starbucks anyway

Besides their overinflated claims of fair trade products, courts just ruled that they were paying shift supervisors by tapping in to the tip jar of low wage baristas instead of paying them their selves. What slime, but then again, I always thought their coffee tasted burnt and not very good anyway. While Starbucks has enjoyed stunning profits (at least until recently) it seems part of this came as a result of them just being stingy with the lowest paid employees. Read More......

Hillary adviser invokes the crucifixion of Christ to Hillary's partisan advantage over Obama

I'm gonna go on a limb here and say that Jesus did not die on the cross for Hillary's superdelegates.

Again, you have to keep in mind that this is the week that the Associated Press finally went there and talked about Bill Clinton and Monica having relations in the White House while Hillary was in the house. So, it's understandable that the Clintons and their allies are throwing everything they can at Obama to change the subject, even going so far as to use Holy Week - the crucifixion of Jesus - for their own partisan gain.

It's funny. The Clintons have criticized Obama for saying that Hillary would do anything, say anything, to win. I think abusing the crucifixion for political gain, the day before Easter, ranks pretty high up in the say-anything-do-anything category.

From the NYT:

“An act of betrayal,” said James Carville, an adviser to Mrs. Clinton and a friend of Mr. Clinton.

“Mr. Richardson’s endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic,” Mr. Carville said, referring to Holy Week.

Read More......

China: Everyone in the world supports us in Tibet

And by everyone, they mean dictators with troubled human rights issues of their own along with poor countries who are begging for financial aid. Convincing, isn't it? Nothing says "we're right" like statements from Robert Mugabe types. China continues to stress that Tibet is, will be and always has been part of China. I'm not so sure of that argument but even more important is that communist China has been obliterating Tibetan culture since the 1959 takeover.

The Beijing government has been moving their own people into the region for decades in an attempts to wipe out all aspects of the local culture and replace it with an outside regime. Beijing would rather people just ignore that point but this has a lot to do with the continuing attempts in Tibet to break free from that government. Had China ever shown a willingness to let Tibet remain autonomous they probably wouldn't have this situation, but obviously that's not possible for them. This is why their own lapdog media is talking about "crushing" Tibet. Read More......

A few tips on making the new comments work

As you may now, we're using some new comments software. The old stuff let us ban a maximum of 20 people, which was ridiculous. The new one is infinite. It also has a lot of other advantages. Some people have been having trouble with it, so here are a few tips.

1. You have to enable "javascript" on your browser. If you don't know how to do that, well, you need to ask someone. It's in the options sections of you browser.

2. You need to enable cookies specifically coming from Disqus.com - again, ask someone if you don't know how.

3. The comments definitely prefer Firefox to Internet Explorer. Other than your office making you use Internet Explorer, there's really no excuse for continuing to use IE at this point. Firefox is much better, and safer. Download it, it's free.

4. One reader found out that if you're using Internet Explorer, and are getting an error when click on the "Comments" link, just click the headline of the post and it will bring you to a page where you can read the post AND see the comments box (provided you're logged in).

5. Once you create your account, ignore any requests to link your account to your blog. That only matters if you are setting up a Disqus account to use on YOUR blog, not to use the comments on my blog. After your account is set up, you should be able to post fine.

6. Make sure you check the settings on your account, once you set it up, and turn off your email notifications from Disqus if you don't want to receive messages. I'm pretty sure that the notifications may be set to "on" by default, which is kind of dumb. Read More......

You need to watch this now

I just received the following email:

My brother has Down syndrome. He's heavily caught up in the current political race. We are both Philadelphia natives. I'd like to share with you his very brief but very moving endorsement of Barack Obama. I believe this is newsworthy because my brother, Dan is symbolic. His judgement of character is just as valuable as the most famous or respected individuals currently receiving press for endorsing a candidate. Please allow his honest voice to be heard. Find out more about my older brother's impact on the world around him and the documentary we're making together at http://dandrinker.com.

View Dan's Endorsement of Senator Obama HERE

Thank you for your time,
Will Drinker

Here is the video - the best part is the last 20 seconds:

Read More......

Former Air Force Chief of Staff criticizes Clinton's "McCarthyite" tactics against Obama

AP would have you believe that General McPeak was just an Obama "aide." In fact, he's the former Chief of Staff for the entire Air Force. Even better, he's a Republican who served for nearly 2 years as Bill Clinton's Air Force Chief of Staff. He's also a co-chair of Obama's presidential campaign, but for AP to refer to him as an "Obama aide" hardly does the man justice. This isn't some kid we're talking about. And McPeak was none too pleased with Bill Clinton's comments last night suggesting that Obama wasn't "patriotic." Then again, the Associated Press did just publish a rather large and embarrassing article about how Hillary was often in the White House while Bill Clinton was asking Monica for oral sex, so it's understandable why the Clinton campaign is now trying to change the subject. I suspect that come the fall, were Hillary our nominee, the Republicans will be talking about Monica and Bill's sex life 24/7. And trying to call John McCain unpatriotic in order to stop the Monica sex talk just isn't going to cut it. The Clintons need to explain to the superdelegates and the country how they're going deal with the Monica problem come the fall. It's not a nice topic, but it's one that's going to come up, early and often, and as Hillary always reminds us, it's better to vet the scandals now so we can see how well our candidates will truly do against the Republicans. So, let's vet. Read More......

Saturday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Wild, wild week.

Take a breath with this week's poem, which is Dream Variations by Langston Hughes. Also, the poet behind the "poem of the week blog" also does a regular column at Huffington Post on poetry in our every day culture. It's quite interesting.

What do you know? Read More......

Easter weekend

Admittedly, I'm not a religious person though I am always intrigued by religion and how cultures recognize religious events and locations. A few years ago while visiting a friend in a small village in the south of France, the village had their annual procession for the Stations of the Cross to start the Easter weekend. The villagers have been doing this for decades, dressing in costumes and leading the entire village to each station. It really was quite a site to see.

Last summer I had the opportunity to visit Israel including Jerusalem and spent time visiting the original Via Dolorosa and the Stations of the Cross right in to the Holy Sepulchre. Regardless of what you believe walking the streets of Jerusalem (in all districts) is one of the most amazing places on earth. It's heavy - very heavy - but every stone has history that scans history right up until today. Even entering the city through the (now closed, I believe) crossing point from Jordon through the DMZ and the West Bank was amazing. Anyway, the night photos are from Roquebrune village (officially Roquebrune-Cap Martin) and the rest, from Jerusalem.

More photos after the jump.


Lighting the candles for one of the Stations of the Cross.


One of the Stations of the Cross during the procession.




The procession in the village on Good Friday.


A Jerusalem street sign for the famous street.


Above, Station VI on the Via Dolorosa where Veronica met Jesus and wiped his face as he carried the cross.


In the Holy Sepulchre where Jesus was cleansed after death. Crowds of people would gather to touch the stone, often crying and placing objects on it. The occasional outbursts of crying with hair pulling and laying parts of their body on the slab could be somewhat odd to an outsider like myself. Interesting to observe though.
Read More......

Cheney to jawbone Saudis on oil prices

Too little, too late. Why is he only raising this subject now that oil is above $100? Even with the drop, it's still outrageously high but his kind and the Bush blue blood types never notice how much the chauffeur puts in the limo. Is it so difficult to give a damn about anyone outside of the boardrooms of Wall Street? I know, I know...of course the answer is "no" with the Republicans. Read More......