This evening's Rescue Rangers are Patriot Daily, HansScholl, jlms qkw, dadanation, shayera, and srkp23, with watercarrier4diogenes at the Editor's Desk looking smirkingly serious

Tonight's diaries cover a variety of interesting issues not covered by the 'traditional media' (tm Kos) with the kind of research, perspective and analysis we see here every day.

• fedupcitizen, inspired by the CNN documentary Black in America and the poetry of Jon Goode, revisits childhood memories and the importance of neighborhood in mom's gonna show you right from wrong. (Hans Scholl)
• iampunha covers history from 1865 to 2008 in July 26, 1948: I order you to serve with that black man. (jlms qkw)
• D Wreck reports on the chilling news that police conducted 288 hours of undercover surveillance on "terrorists," a.k.a peace activists. (srkp23)
• dday discusses how at least 3 of our candidate class of 2008 will be Putting the "more" in more and better Democrats in our caucus. (Patriot Daily)
• Andrew for Oklahoma informs us that Andrew Rice needs some donations to extend the run of a great TV ad to provide Rice with name ID needed to beat Inhofe in OK-Sen: Oklahoma Heat. (Patriot Daily)
• EuroTrash60's My picture was in the Berliner Zeitung! Obama crowd recaps what it was like to be part of that crowd of 200,000 people and closes with a photograph that surely will make you smile. (dadanation)
• Crashing Vor offers Divertissement: Come Fly with Me (Photos) and shares with the community some wonderful architectural news. (shayera)
• In dishing out a healthy dose of snark, EugeneF elaborates on How Michael Savage Would Have Explained the Bubonic Plague. (dadanation)
• Mother Mags reminds Kossacks that We Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet. (shayera)
• atitlan brings the most crucial and most overlooked P.O.V concerning the U.S. occupation of Iraq, in Iraqis: 'Surge' Is a Catastrophe. (srkp23)
• Silent Spring offers up a thoughtful diary on The Catholic Vote and intersections with Democratic values. (srkp23)

jotter has High Impact Diaries - July 25, 2008 and asimbagirl has Top Comments: Decompressing after Netroots Nation.

Enjoy and please promote your own favorite diaries in this open thread (even if you're the author! Here's where that's actually appreciated). And, of course, since it's an open thread, PLAY NICE, OK? 8^)

Let's go back to a good salsa, with Boricua New Yorker Michael Stuart:

Coming Up on Sunday Kos ...

• brownsox will share his thoughts on Netroots Nation, as a first-time attendee.
• Netroots Nation has MissLaura thinking about community.
• Devilstower looks at at the mythology of energy in "Thoroughly Modern Mastodons."
• BarbinMD will look at John McCain's idea of running a respectful campaign.
• SusanG will review Barbara Ehrenreich's This Land Is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation.
• DarkSyde will review Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming by two leading lights in climate research, Michael Mann and Lee R. Kump.

We haven't done a bachata yet, have we? Here's "Obsesion" by Aventura. Bachata is a Dominican creation featuring lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass, and percussion (bongos and güiras). Very sparse, very romantic, and fun as hell to dance.

And here's my favorite bachata of all time -- kos

This evening's Rescue Rangers are vcmvo2, jlms qkw, shayera, Patriot Daily, sunspark says and joyful with shayera as editor.

• dday compellingly analyzes The Right's Goal to Demonize Political Participation. (vcmvo2)
• TomP continues his series on the continuing number of farm workers killed by heat stroke in United Farm Workers Calls for Manslaughter Charges Against Company in Death of 17 Year Old. (Patriot Daily)
• Most of us can list several problems we have with the GOP nominee, but it's worth the time to saddle up with Texas Cowboy and read a comprehensive and well-researched compendium on The Truth About John McCain. (sunspark says)
• MotleyPatriot reminisces on blowing things up in EOD; what is it and what do we do? (jlms qkw)
• Detroit Mark reports on last year's mining disaster in Crandall Canyon Mine: It Was All Bob's Fault After all. (vcmvo2)
• snackdoodle introduces us to two of the athletes on the Iraq Olympic team banned by the IOC in "who can say I'll even be alive in 2012?" (Patriot Daily)
• Tired of letting the right wing define the issues, TheOpinionGuy argues that we should begin defining them ourselves in the first of a new series, *WANTED* Progressive Framings: (1) Health Care. (sunspark says)
• Shocko from Seattle wonders about the loss of our personal hand skills in our information, service economy in On the knowing and making of things in a 21st century economy. (Patriot Daily)
• Kevin Holsinger gives us a Republican view of modern history in Bullshistory: a timeline. (shayera)
• Dirk McQuigley evaluates DOJ memos to determine When is torture done in "bad faith"? (Patriot Daily)
• Since the MSM isn't telling you, scorpiorising wants you to know about the Environmental Disaster in Louisiana. (jlms qkw)
• NeverStopTheProgress brings us an update on the growing scandal regarding Halliburton's KBR branch in Benjamin Carter v. Hallibuton Company; and Kellogg, Brown & Root (aka KBR). (sunspark says)
• caldreaming frames Mr. Gore's recent comments in Did Al Gore move the Overton Window? (jlms qkw)
• RO45 shares some personal life experiences and insight in CNN, On Being Black, and Me. (Patriot Daily)
• oxfdblue, in a graphic heavy diary, brings Kossacks Front Pages From Around the World. (shayera)
• TheFatLadySings gives a vivid recap of nyceve's Netroots Nation panel on health care reform in Health Series: Nyceve Spars w Ezra, Rocks the Netroots! (vcmvo2)

jotter has High Impact Diaries - July 24, 2008.

Carnacki brings Top comments - Obama inspired.

Enjoy and please promote your own favorite diaries from the last 24 hours in the open thread.

::

Carlos Vives, with a Colombian vallenato.

Coming Up on Sunday Kos ...

• brownsox will share his thoughts on Netroots Nation, as a first-time attendee.
• Netroots Nation has MissLaura thinking about community.
• Devilstower looks at at the mythology of energy in "Thoroughly Modern Mastodons."
• BarbinMD will look at John McCain's idea of running a respectful campaign.
• SusanG will review Barbara Ehrenreich's This Land Is Their Land.
• DarkSyde will review Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming by two leading lights in climate research, Michael Mann and Lee R. Kump.

• The Swing State Project rolls out its Cash Power Rankings for the House and the Senate. Click through to see how your favorite challengers stack up against incumbents in terms of cash-on-hand.
• As an example of the networks working hard to level the field even if it means tilting right to do it:

  "This has got to be very frustrating for John McCain . . . that he wants to make his points, he wants to get coverage, and yet everything seems to swarm around Barack Obama," Gibson told viewers."

  Cry me a river, Charlie. It’s even more frustrating for voters who don’t want artificial balance so much as unbiased news. - DemFromCT

• As is so often the case, what Digby said.
• I thought John McCain said there were no votes to be had in Europe:

  Barack Obama's campaign has received roughly 10 times more money from declared U.S. donors living in Germany, France and Britain than his Republican rival, reflecting his popularity in Europe as he makes his first tour of the continent as the presumed Democratic nominee.

• Could it be? Is Barack Obama really Amish? See the proof and judge for yourself.
• Words fail...

  There seems to me no question that the Batman film "The Dark Knight," currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.

• Kate Sheppard at Grist has summarized Van Jones's July 20 speech at Netroots Nation. He spoke of a "Green New Deal" and how Barack Obama will face tough sailing on energy issues against a conservative backlash if he is elected.

  Jones emphasized the pursuit of a new, green economy as the solution to all these problems - weaning the country of fossil fuels, giving consumers other options, creating new jobs, and including historically disadvantaged communities into the conversation.

  "We have to change the terms of the debate," said Jones. "We've been getting our butts whooped by the 'drill, drill, drill' mantra."

  - Meteor Blades

• There's nothing like an election year to get Congress off their ass.

  The Senate cleared the last hurdle Friday to passing a housing rescue aimed at sparing hundreds of thousands of homeowners from foreclosure and bolstering troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

  The 80-13 test vote showed broad support for the election-year package and put it on track to pass the Senate by Saturday. The White House says President Bush will sign it, having earlier dropped a threat to veto it over $3.9 billion in neighborhood grants.

• If you're planning to buy tickets for the Olympics, you may want to avoid the first-day-on-sale rush.
• Did you miss the Netroots Nation Pub Quiz?  Recap and video here.  --Adam B

Nas and Color of Change deliver 620,000 petitions to Fox News calling it out for its racist behavior.

This evening's Rescue Rangers are vcmvo2, ybruti, a synthetic cubist, sunspark says, HansScholl, dadanation and jlms qkw with Avila as editor.

• captbobalou suggests that religious fundamentalism may not be the most difficult issue to overcome in Afghanistan in The Problem with Poppies (Part II). (sunspark says)
• winterbanyan describes how Obama's visit has stirred memories of kindness and courage of the American pilots during the Berlin airlift in Obama, the "Raisin Bombers" and my German friend. (HansScholl)
• Louise finds echoes of FDR in Obama's Berlin speech in Obama and FDR's 'Four Freedoms'. (sunspark says)
• fake consultant takes a look at the Bush administration's failure to support our troops upon their return from war in On Extraordinary Awards, Or, Wounded Troops, Wounded Again. (sunspark says)
• mspicata pulls back to look at the larger political picture, the right wing's limited arsenal, and John McCain's tomato supply. (a synthetic cubist)
• boofdah, who recently added two little boys to her family, explains why Being a foster parent has made me more, not less, liberal. (ybruti)
• CinDan reminds us that our failure to have universal health care carries a higher price tag than who pays the co-pay in Rejected. (vcmvo2)
• Tuffy illustrates problems with our health care system in I am so damned tired of almost losing family. (ybruti)
• AdmiralNaismith continues his state by state review of Democratic prospects in the upcoming elections in Focus On...WISCONSIN!!! (HansScholl)
• Bcgntn shares her reflections on her father's birthday and Obama's speech in The Audacity to Hope is a Dream From My Father. (jlms qkw)
• CIndyCasella has a somewhat more sympathetic than usual take on the Katie Couric/John McCain interview in Dear Katie. (sunspark says)
• lyubansky examines the socioeconomic differences between the races in the well-researched but cumbersomely titled How Obama can appeal to Black and White voters and why doing so is more difficult than it may seem. (sunspark says)
• While bklynarch outlines why wetlands are vital to slowing climate change in Wetland Destruction - Another AGW Puzzle Piece, Crashing Vor explains how they can act like "Horizontal Levees". (a synthetic cubist)
• FishOutofWater reports on the status of a plan to protect endangered Hawaiian marine life in Endangered Species & Unique Habitats Must be Protected. (vcmvo2)

High Impact Diaries are brought to you by jotter, and Top Comments - Lily vs. The Head are brought to you by emeraldmaiden.

Enjoy and please promote your own favorite diaries from the last 24 hours in the open thread.

Nas and Color of Change deliver 620,000 petitions to Fox News calling it out for its racist behavior.

Just a little reminder from Berlin ....

This is what "proud to be an American" looks like in the 21st Century.

• Who is this guy and why is he so whiny? He was "frightened and intimidated" by the "angry left blog Daily Kos"? What a wuss.
• Wondering what the Sarah Palin scandal is all about? Here's a good roundup of the affair that has knocked a Republican governor once sporting an over-90 percent approval rating back to earth..
• Comments are scary. Yup, that means you.

  To add, these stories always start with sensational ledes about "death threats", as though it's those crazy liberals or whatnot that engage in that kind of idiotic behavior. Here's an email I got a couple of days ago:

  killaliberal@yahoo.com to markos
  show details Jul 22 (2 days ago)

  addresses are being compiled of all kos personnel...once this has been done they will be targeted for execution... death to all KOS.

  Is that a "death threat" or just a George Bush-loving fringe wanker trying to be tough hacking away at his cheetos-stained keyboard? Having grown up in El Salvador and seen what real political violence looks like, this is all pretty lame. In El Salvador, dissenters were actually assassinated. It wasn't all idle threats. And so far, this country hasn't descended into that dark abyss.

• The number of registered Democrats in the 29 party registration states has grown by 700,000. The number of registered Republicans has dropped by 1 million. That's a 1.7 million net gain in our direction.
• Colbert dedicated most of his show to rapper Nas and the Color of Change petition on Fox's racism.
• Yeah. Old people tend to be stubborn too.
• Obama's small donors outraise McCain.
• I had to look at this for a great deal of time to figure out that it wasn't parody.
• Larry Sabato and a couple of co-authors, over at his place, say there is no toss-up.

  While no election outcome is guaranteed and McCain's prospects could improve over the next three and a half months, virtually all of the evidence that we have reviewed--historical patterns, structural features of this election cycle, and national and state polls conducted over the last several months--point to a comfortable Obama/Democratic party victory in November. Trumpeting this race as a toss-up, almost certain to produce another nail-biter finish, distorts the evidence and does a disservice to readers and viewers who rely upon such punditry. Again, maybe conditions will change in McCain's favor, and if they do, they should also be accurately described by the media. But current data do not justify calling this election a toss-up [...]

  Barack Obama is not a national hero like Dwight Eisenhower, and George Bush is no Harry Truman. But if history is any guide, and absent a dramatic change in election fundamentals or an utter collapse of the Obama candidacy, John McCain is likely to suffer the same fate as Adlai Stevenson.

• As Ford posts yet another crazy-ass quarterly loss ($8.7 billion), it makes one wonder how much better the US auto industry (and its unions) would be doing if they had let the government raise CAFE standards, huh? The government could've bailed them out of this mess.

  And it makes one wonder how much better that industry would be doing if they hadn't so viciously opposed Bill and Hillary Clinton's 1993 health care initiative. In 2004, GM spent over $5 billion in health care costs -- a number that is likely significantly larger today. That's billions that would be off its balance sheet had they not opposed universal healthcare.

  Lots of industries may shoot themselves in the foot, but none more so than the auto industry. It truly deserves the comeuppance it is getting (and it has gotten a healthy assist from its unions). The people who don't deserve it -- of course -- are its workers, who are getting screwed.

Nas and Color of Change deliver 620,000 petitions to Fox News calling it out for its racist behavior.

Tonight's Diary Rescue crew was Louisiana 1976, BentLiberal, dopper0189, Yashua, Avila, ItsJessMe, dadanation and srkp23.

The rescued diaries

• First-time diarist MindWideOpen brings us some perspective in an op-ed about the state of the world in Fire + Fire = More Fire. (Yashua)
• First-time diarist lyubansky examines The Racial Implications of a Barack Obama Presidency. (dopper0189)
• Lib Dem FoP pens an eloquent tribute to a courageous Royal Marines reservist who has been honored with the George Cross medal for his service in Afghanistan in For Gallantry. (Avila)
• Immigrant Punk introduces us to a new canvassing organization and how we can help in Progressive Future: The Foot-Soldiers of Your Revolution. (ItsJessMe)
• In a well-researched and well-crafted diary, Liberal Youth cites case law and precedent in asking and answering the question How Likely is it that Bush Pardons Himself? (BentLiberal)
• Stranded Wind writes how medical services for the poor are not equal in all states in Universal Health Care Has Made Me Whole and uses his own health history to illustrate the point. (Louisiana 1976)
• We all want "fair and balanced" news. This includes RKA who believes McCain deserves more media coverage. (Spoiler -- excellent snark contained in this diary - editor). (dopper0189)
• Press to Digitate presents a compelling argument for lending an ear to various opinions on saving our planet in A Carbon Future: Now 'Up In The Air'. (Yashua)
• In a diary chock-full of helpful advice, margeauxtex describes her own and her family's personal experience in I can't be broke -- I still have checks left and tells us how we can raise financially-responsible children. (Louisiana 1976)
• Eternal Hope delves into the depths of 19th Century philosophy, and argues against the practices of Christian Fundamentalism in Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil. (Yashua)

The regular extras

jotter has High Impact Diaries - July 22, 2008.

va dare brings Top Comments 7.23.08 'Progressive Mojo' - an oxymoron?

The reminder

Please use this as an Open Thread as well as your chance to promote your favorite diaries of the day. Respectful engagement is most welcome here. Please keep in mind that each Diary Rescue's daily purview extends from 3pm PST yesterday to 3pm PST today.

Here's some Selena, who was murdered far too young by the deranged president of her fan club.

And here's the J Lo version from the movie Selena -- J Lo's breakout role.

I likes me some war, my friends, my friends.

• Um, Katharine? I wrote that post a year ago. The 2007 should've given that way.
• The AP's Ron Fournier really is a problem.
• BooMan tallies the candidates and elected officials who were present at Netroots Nation. There's a crapload of them. So I guess Democrats really aren't afraid of us. And the good ones really do have little to fear.

  There were a lot of politicians from red and purple states and districts who had the common sense to understand that the (New) New Left may be anti-war but they have little else in common with the 60's counterculture (except insofar as the Netroots welcomes the veterans of those wars with open arms). The Netroots is unapologetically pro-Constitution, anti-torture, and pro-Small Business. Our consensus positions on the war, on reproductive rights, on gay rights, and the environment are now majority American opinions. They aren't fringe. We have the (Old) New Left to thank for a lot of that, but the Netroots' culture is decidedly different, as are our primary goals. The (Old) New Left was tackling the Establishment on desegregation and women's liberation in an attempt to tear down centuries-old injustices. The (New) New Left is not attempting anything so bold or transformative. We're trying to get universal health care, Fair Trade, a green energy plan, and a restoration of the consensus American governmental and legal values of the post-war period...including internationalism and human rights.

• Cool pictures of a leopard ambushing and killing a croc, apparently for no reason at all (crocodiles don't have enough meat to justify the risk and danger). (Via John Cole's place.)
• The McCain campaign lied to Bob Novak, telling him they'd be choosing a veep on Tuesday to try and steal some of the thunder from Obama's overseas trip. Now Novak is pissed. So pissed, apparently, that he ran over a pedestrian. He drives a black corvette.
• Jindal is reportedly taking himself out of the veep-stakes. Too bad. The GOP has just lost its only "not ancient and white" option.
• I write in The Hill that the left has inherent advantages online.

  This disparity isn’t surprising. While conservative bloggers can rightfully claim a couple of minor successes, they’ve been generally relegated to the fringes of their movement. There’s been little need for them. Conservatives eager for conservative voices have long had a smorgasbord of options from which to choose, from Fox News Channel to an AM radio buffet dominated by Rush Limbaugh and clones, to hordes of movement conservatives clogging up newspaper op-ed pages, to well-established online message boards. Despite "liberal media" cries, there has never been any medium truly dominated by movement progressives. So-called "liberal" voices, like Joe Klein and Richard Cohen, have been more concerned with getting approbation from their friends in the D.C. cocktail party circuit than truly fighting for progressive causes.

  Furthermore, the right-wing media machine operates in a top-bottom fashion, relying heavily on its firebrand personalities — Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly. Progressives instinctively chafe at this hierarchical approach. Yet the Republican ability to march in lockstep has paid huge political dividends, yielding GOP victories on the strength of simplistic, well-crafted, oft-repeated (and even more often, bogus) messages, like the fabricated quote that Al Gore claimed to have "invented" the Internet.

  But the horizontal, collaborative structure of successful online communities clearly poses a problem for right-wing bloggers, precisely because their movement excels in following orders instead of participating in bottom-up discussion and organizing. Americans get enough one-way communication on TV, radio and print; those who follow politics online do so because it allows them to engage in something larger, not because they want to hear yet another bloviator blather.

• CO-04: The wide consensus is that this is Marilyn Musgrave's swang song, increasingly out of touch with a blue-ing district and done in by her single-minded obsession with gay bashing. Colorado Independent takes a look at the numbers of one of the district's key counties:

  The number of Weld County Republicans has remained relatively flat since 2004, rising 2 percent to 50,110 as of last month, according to Secretary of State data.

  Although the number of registered Weld Democrats during the same time is up 5 percent to 31,289, it’s the 12 percent increase in unaffiliated voters that has Democrats smiling.

• Way back in the day, Obama was a rare vote against eliminating rent control in Illinois.
• Yup. This is certainly pretty darn stupid.