As the great wheel turns, and the gloaming fades into the summer night, I place my hands once more on the monitor. Once more, the distance between us dissolves, and I am overwhelmed by your insistent voices. Oh yes, I sense you out there in the dark American night, and yes, I still have my suspicions about you.

For much of my life, I've been a strong advocate of gun control in America.  I note that very few people in America hunt for food on a regular basis, and I don't believe that hunting for humans is a proper expression of the second amendment (and to wit, I know of almost no example of the gun murder of another human being where such murder expanded the hunter's food supply).

However, today, in purple Wisconsin, I read an article that made me question my previous gun control stance.  

1917 - J. Edgar Hoover gets job on ministry of Justice

1964 - Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa convicted of fraud and conspiracy

COINCIDENCE? I think NOT!

"The whole idea of god is absurd. If anything, '2001' shows that what some people call 'god' is simply an acceptable term for their ignorance. What they don't understand, they call 'god' . . . . I chose to do Dr. Clarke's story as a film because it highlights a critical factor necessary for human evolution; that is, beyond our present condition. This film is a rejection of the notion that there is a god; isn't that obvious?"
-- Stanley Kubrick

FROM THE CHURCH OF INEFFABLE STUPIDITY:

I got this email, cause I'm on some strange lists:
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This is a Message Alert for all Republican pundits and emplaced "reporters",  Note the recent news itemfrom (of course!) California:

LOS ANGELES — California, a national trendsetter in all matters edible, became the first state to ban trans fats in restaurants when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill Friday to phase out their use.

Under the new law, trans fats, long linked to health problems, must be excised from restaurant products beginning in 2010, and from all retail baked goods by 2011. Packaged foods will be exempt.

We believe this is the golden opportunity those fools in California have given us to steal this election for its rightful owners!

By Your Correspondent

WACO, Texas (SNRK News Int’l) – For the second time in a week, an internationally sought-after fugitive has been captured. Osama bin Laden, atop the FBI’s Most Wanted list since 1998, was arrested earlier today in Crawford, Texas, a small town near the city of Waco. Serbian Bosnian Radovan Karadžić, wanted for war crimes in the Bosnian war of 1992-95, was captured Monday in Belgrade.

Bin Laden was whisked away in a convoy of big black SUVs. His whereabouts at this time are unknown. Government sources, who refused to be identified because they are not authorized to speak to the press, said the 51-year-old bin Laden has been living under the alias of Sam Benjamin Jr. A quick Googling revealed that, in 2005, Benjamin won the Dallas-Ft. Worth-Waco-Austin Realtor of the Year Award for exceptional sales volume at his company, Alkiyder Homes and Condos.

Nobody at the White House, FBI, CIA, Transportation Security Administration, National Security Administration, Secret Service, Pentagon, Homeland Security,  National Reconnaissance Office, National Counterterrorism Center, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Dick Cheney’s Cabal, Defense Intelligence Agency or Crawford Police Department would speak to your correspondent on the record about the capture. At the State Department, however, a Miss Condoleeza Rice answered the phone and firmly told us, "There was no way we could have known bin Laden would change his name and move to Texas."

^{At right, ‘Sam Benjamin Jr.’ at the Alkiyder Homes & Condos Web site}  

Senator Obama has had an amazing week outside of the U.S. He's helped to renew optimism and sense of mission in our brave men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and the commanders(not that they were deficient in either but a little boost never hurts) while meeting with the leadership of both of those countries as well as the leaders of Israel, Jordan and the Palestinians.  All parties seemed to have gotten a genuine boost from his visit with some uneasiness being assuaged and relationships being built.  All the leaders seemed genuinely pleased and impressed with Senator Obama who did a wonderful job or representing the US Senate to the Middle East.  He then gives a thoughtful and moving speech in Germany reminding both us and our European allies of our common strengths and beliefs, opportunities to improve and our historic partnerships in both war and peace that helped reshape the world for the better without coming across as petulant, arrogant or pandering.  All in all it was a wonderful blend of statesmanship, patriotism, diplomacy and character that to be frank, our allies have seen all to little of from us (if at all) for these past 7.5 years.

More below the fold

Barack Obama just lost the election. The Republicans have discovered that a young Obama wrote a paper in college. This paper has gone missing. The following will Doom Obama allowing McCain to win this election.

http://deepbackground.msnbc.msn.com/...

The hunt for Obama’s senior "thesis" began with a throwaway line in a newspaper article last October. The New York Times story, on Obama’s early New York years, mentioned in passing that the presidential contender had majored in political science at Columbia and had spent his time "writing his thesis on Soviet nuclear disarmament."

Journalists began hounding Columbia University for copies of the musty document. Conservative bloggers began wondering if the young Obama had written a no-nukes screed that he might come to regret. And David Bossie, the former congressional investigator and "right-wing hit man," as one newspaper described him, took out classified newspaper ads in Columbia University’s newspaper and the Chicago Tribune in March searching for the term paper.

It's over people! This is the big one.

Watching or reading the MSM in utter disbelief, I don't think it's fair that only pundits get to use the most fervid depths of their imaginations to impugn the various Obama campaign triumphs.

I think Kossacks should have that right, too.

The news media and pundits love to accuse Barack Obama of having a problem with winning over Jewish voters, though the polls tell otherwise. It's based mostly on those disgusting e-mail smears that have gone around regarding Obama's religion, of course, which makes this story extra curious.

I suppose this is a question of how far someone will go to prove they can be trusted, if it's true.

Obama, in Israel, Bar Mitzvah'd

Presumptive Democratic Presidential Nominee Barack Obama, continuing his high-profile and closely watched tour of the Middle East, was in Israel on Wednesday, where, after meeting with that country’s leaders, was called to the Torah in order to be ordained an adult man in the Jewish religious tradition.

With Barack Obama's world tour getting unbelievable press attention (I mean, how could they not be following John McCain's Sausage Haus visit?), and the French media's absolute obsession with Nicholas Sarkozy, I suppose this was just bound to happen. We've only seen a ten second clip of the two of them together, played over and over again on the talking heads news networks, and now we know why.

If only we were in Paris to see this: Obama, Sarkozy Melt Paparazzi

A twelve second video tape, obtained by each of the major broadcast news networks, was the only footage of presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama and French President Nicholas Sarkozy that survived the all-powerful ray of heat light that charged across the countryside when the two leaders met on the steps of the French Presidential Palace on Friday.

Immediately after Barack Obama's historic speech before over 200,000 people yesterday in Berlin, MSNBC political analyst Chuck Todd opined, "John McCain could have given that speech."

Now, I understand what Todd was saying. The speech was non-partisan and non-ideological. Obama's lofty rhetoric was simply trying inspire the peoples of all nations, races and religions to work together to make the world a better place. Not very controversial ideas.

But John McCain never could have given that speech in a million years because he is not interested in any of that stuff. To suggest otherwise is absurd. John McCain cares about war, namely the Iraq War. Follow me below for my version of what McCain might have said if he had been in Obama's place.

How Anecdotal Evidence Can Undermine Scientific Results: Scientific American

...thinking anecdotally comes naturally, whereas thinking scientifically does not.
...
The reason for this cognitive disconnect is that we have evolved brains that pay attention to anecdotes because false positives (believing there is a connection between A and B when there is not) are usually harmless, whereas false negatives (believing there is no connection between A and B when there is) may take you out of the gene pool. Our brains are belief engines that employ association learning to seek and find patterns. Superstition and belief in magic are millions of years old, whereas science, with its methods of controlling for intervening variables to circumvent false positives, is only a few hundred years old.

The "reality" tribe (or "libruls" as they are often called in the wild) depend on cogent arguments based on actual proposals by Obama and mistakes by McCain and no one cares because they are shrill. The libruls are thin and underfed, and we've heard they're grouchy a lot.

The MSM has refused to cover the "John Edwards Fathered Bat Boy!!!" story. In protest of this travesty, Mickey Kaus called a press conference today and dropped his pants.

Kaus (above) has studied the Kaballah in private with Madonna and Roseanne Barr

Join me after the jump for a picture from the press conference. But first, hide your children (and your goats).

1661 - Parliament confirms Navigation Act

1888 - Philip Pratt unveils 1st electric automobile

COINCIDENCE? I think NOT!

"The facts on which the true believer bases his conclusions must not be derived from his experience or observation but from holy writ. . . . To rely on the evidence of the senses and of reason is heresy and treason.
. . . . Thus the effectiveness of a doctrine should not be judged by its profundity, sublimity or the validity of the truths it embodies, but by how thoroughly it insulates the individual from his self and the world as it is. What Pascal said of an effective religion is true of any effective doctrine: It must be 'contrary to nature, to common sense and to pleasure.'"
-- Eric Hoffer

I know, it seemed to inexplicable, how could a journalist of such stellar talent and unshakable credability do something so rancidly corrupt that it would shake the faith in unbiased reporting that Americans have had for years?!

But there was something we didn't know, a simple explanation that, once heard, clears everything up. It was a promo for CBS Films new Blockbuster film! I managed to get my hands on some promotional material which I scanned and uploaded. Check it out below the fold!

(Update)
I just wanted to say, if you want to steal this image and spread it around, please DO SO! It isn't just early morning people at the great Orange Satan that need a laugh.

Yesterday John McCain announced his Vice Presidential selection to a crowd of tens in a parking garage in Columbus, Ohio. Unfortunately, there was no media present, no one in the crowd thought to video the event and there was no cell phone coverage in the 3 story underground facility. Asked if it was true he had named his running mate McCain responded, "Are you my economy czar? No, have you seen him?" Later at a restaurant near his home former Congressman Rob Portman was asked if he was the choice. "Yes it is," said Portman, "and the wine is superb."

Dear Journal,
The other I visited what Americans call the "grocery store". It was quite an experience. After all these years, I thought tha Frank my driver accumulated all of my food and delivered it. I had no idea that these stores existed.

While I was busy working the registration tables at NN08, Kay Bailey Hutchison wrote me last week to thank me for sharing my thoughts on the FISA bill and immunity for the Telecoms - you'll have to trust me on this one since I can't link back to my inbox:

I recognize that some oppose liability protection, but I believe that it is untenable to allow lawsuits to proceed at the same time that we limit the ability of the defendant companies to produce evidence critical to their defense. The potential liability awards that might result could be catastrophic, negatively affecting the broader economy and signaling to these companies, and to other private entities that we may need to rely upon in the War on Terror, that their cooperation carries major risks.

Please know that I will continue to work with my colleagues in Congress to safeguard the security of our nation while upholding our personal privacy rights and civil liberties.

Senator Hutchinson said that she appreciated hearing from me, so I wrote her back to say that since she had sworn to uphold the Constitution, that the catastrophic impact of this bill on my Constitutional rights was simply untenable.  Surprisingly, I didn't get a response to that email.