Hello Santa Monica!  One of my favorite places.

Thanks for the info

The one from Netroots Nation last night.

http://c-span.org/

you too floridagal

This is the same issue with the cartoon cover of Obama as a Muslim, Michelle as a Panther, and Osama Bin Laden's portrait on the wall over the fireplace with an American flag burning in side the fireplace..

The article is fairly long, about ten pages, but it is terrific because it profiles Obama as a politician and strategist. As I read it, he has been true to form all the way through. He is a politician, a strategist (he manages his own campaigns, unlike Hillary who turned hers over to McAuliffe and Mark Penn). He's frugal, analyzes the polls, the interest groups, the people he needs to support him, and the amount of money he will need.

Early on, he developed relationships with powerful leaders and politicians, so that when he was ready to run for office, he had the backing, the advice, and the groups he needed. Yet, despite all his strategy, he has remained honest. In the article he is described as someone who knows what's wrong with the system and will tell you, but he also uses the system.

A couple of quotes:" p. 52. "In his early foray into politics, Obama revealed the toughness and brashness that this year's long primary season brought into view. As Burns, ( an Illinois politician) who has a mischievous sense of humor and a gift for mimicry, recalled, 'Black activists, community folks, felt that he didn't respect their role'--Burns imitated a self-righteous activist- 'in the struggle and the movement. He didn't engage in obeisance to them. He wanted to get the job done. And Barack's cheap, too. If you can't do it and do it in a cost-effective manner, you're not going to work for him."

p. 55 & 56 "Instead of arriving in Springfield as the consensus candidate of his district, Obama was regarded as a troublemaker. 'He had created some enemies,'Emil Jones, who in 2003 became president of the Illinois Senate, said. Burns described the fallout of the Obama-Palmer race this way: 'It established a reputation that 'you're not going to punk me, you're not going to roll me over, you're not going to jam me.' I think it established him as a threat. You have his independence with Project Vote, you have his refusal to knuckle under during the Alice Palmer thing, and so now you have a series of data points that have some established leaders in the black community feeling disrespected...."

(The black community wanted Obama to drop out of the race against Palmer, who had supported him, before she lost her own race. Now he was competing against her, and he refused to give it up.)

In short, Obama's a complex, brilliant, and principled man, and the more we know about him, the better we will be able to support his candidacy for President. He reminds me of FDR in his talents as a politician. His background, his education, and his real desire to make this a better country for all people will and should make him the next President and one who may in fact be a great President.

One other thing. After the Iraq invasion, Obama spoke to a group of anti-war protesters. He told them that he wasn't against all wars: that the Civil War could only have banished slavery through the catastrophe of the sword, that WWII was necessary. In short, he didn't pander, rather told them who he was and how he thought.

Progressives and activists get upset with him because while he shares their principles, he also listens to conservatives.

I'm sure this makes ideologues of all persuasions nuts, but it's exactly what I want in a President. I want someone who thinks for himself, isn't afraid to say what he thinks, and is willing to hear a diversity of viewpoints. I want someone who can work the system and still recognize the flaws and misuse of it and be willing to work towards improving it.

Anyway, it's a very good article since it gives a real picture of who Barack Obama is and how he thinks and acts.

Other than that, happy Friday. It's been hot here and dry. I don't think we've had even an inch of rain for the last four weeks.

Going from a nice 65 degrees to 88 and humid with thundershowers.  Blech

that lenders swallow all of the losses in house values with new lower 30 year fixed rate mortgages

no wonder no one wants to extend credit

my farm lender gets nervous if I don't have three times the collateral as the loan

OK almost time to board and I need to get some fruit for the flight.  Cya sometime tomorrow.  Have to run lots of errands for mom and pick up a birthday present for the birthday boy.

Hope your shoulder is feeling better Phil

Later! (praying for no flight delay into thunderstorming Midway)

big blob of rain passing through the Quad Cities towards Chicago but nothing violent

Initial List of 33rd Degree Masons
Albert Pike addressing the 23 Supreme Councils of the world on July 14, 1889:- "To you, Sovereign Grand Instructors General, we say this, that you may repeat it to the Brethren of the 32nd, 31st and 30th degrees: 'the Masonic Religion should be, by all of us initiates of the high degrees, maintained in the purity of the Luciferian Doctrine. . ."

It is said that only two U.S. Presidents: Abraham Lincoln and John Kennedy, were not either Masons or elite members of affiliated bodies

(King) Umberto Agnelli
Buzz Aldrin
Yasser Arafat
(Patriarch) Athenagoras I
Gene Autry
Tobias Axelrod
Foster Bailey
Admiral G.W. Baird
Achille Ballori
M.H. Barroso
Bernard Mannes Baruch
Harry L. Baum
Justice Hugo Black
Jonathan Blanchard
Tony Blair
John Wilkes Booth
John C. Breckinridge
George Herbert Walker Bush
Senator Byrd
Plutarco Elias Calles
James Cameron
Jimmy Carter
Sir Winston Churchill
Henry Clausen
William J. Clinton
Howell Cobb
James B. Conant
Copin-Albancelli
John H. Cowles
Adolphe Cremieux
Francesco Crispi
Aleister Crowley
Delmar Darrah
Morris B. de Pass
Richard DeVos (Amway)
Walt. Disney
Sen. Bob Dole
General James Doolittle
Gerard (Papus) Encausse
Frederick Engels
Senator Sam J. Ervin
Gerald Rudolf Ford
(King) Frederick II
Giuseppe Garibaldi
Newt. Gingrich
John Glenn
Barry Goldwater
Mikhail Gorbachev
Al Gore
J.J.J. Gourgas
Rev. Billy Graham
James Graham
Col. James "Bo" Gritz
Manly P. Hall
Mark Hatfield
Jesse Helms
Christian A. Herter
Richard Holbrooke
J. Edgar Hoover
Col. Edward Mandell House
King Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Burl Icle Ives
Jessie James
Rev. Jesse Jackson
Lyndon Baines Johnson
Jack Kemp
Duke Michael of Kent
Alexander Kerensky
Spencer Kimball
Henry Kissinger
C. Fred Kleinknecht
Kenneth S. Kleinknecht
Helmut Kohl
Arnoldo Krumm-Heller
Adriano Lemmi
Vladimir Lenin
McIlyar H. Lichliter
Gen. Douglas MacArthur
Sir Henry MacMahon
Robert McNamara
Vasili Maklakov
Domenico Margiotta
Thurgood Marshall
James G. Martin
Karl Marx
(Baron) Yves Marsaudon
Joseph Mazzini
Lord Alfred Milner
Francoir Mitterand
Henry Morgenthau
Benjamin Netanyahu
G. Bromley Oxnam
Olof Palme
Henry Palmerston
Shimon Peres
Albert Pike
Dr. Norman Vincent Peale
Prince Phillip
Roscoe Pound
(Gen.) Colin L. Powell
Yitzak Rabin
Ronald Reagan
Joseph Rettinger
Harman Gansvort Reynolds
Marshall S. Reynolds
Michel Reyt
Cecil Rhodes
Oral Roberts
Franklin D.Roosevelt
Paul Rosen
James Rothschild
Charles Taze Russell
Bishop Carl J. Sanders
Jacob Schiff
Bill Schnoebelen
Gerhard Schroeder
Rev. Robert Schuller
James D. Shaw
Senator Simpson
Joseph Stalin
Rudolph Steiner
R.W. Thompson
Storm Thurmond
Leon Trotsky
Harry S. Truman
Pierre G. Vassal
Paul Moritz Warburg
Earl Warren
George Warvelle
H.G. Wells
William Wynn Westcott
Earl Wheeler
Leo Wheeler
John Yarker
Brigham Young

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

big storm blowing in here to - lights dimmed a couple times few minutes ago.

good travels, Denise.

New thwead.

New thwead.

between a long New Yorker article and a half hour Howard speech this thread went by fast

Good threads as of late.  thank you!

Moyers and Winship | Mother's Milk of Politics Turns Sour
http://www.truthout.org/article/mothers-milk-politics-turns-sour
Bill Moyers and Michael Winship write for Truthout: "We just don't seem able to see or accept the fact that money drives policy. It's no wonder that Congress and the White House have been looking the other way as the predators picked the pockets of unsuspecting debtors. Mega banking and investment firms have been some of the biggest providers of the cash vital to keeping incumbents in office. There isn't much appetite for biting - or regulating - the manicured hand that feeds them."

Trial for Vaccine Against HIV Is Canceled
http://www.truthout.org/article/trial-vaccine-against-hiv-is-canceled
Lawrence K. Altman, The New York Times: "Plans for a large human trial of a promising government-developed HIV vaccine in the United States were canceled Thursday because a top federal official said scientists realized that they did not know enough about how HIV vaccines and the immune system interact."