Have you ever felt like your life or today simply is not real?  That you are dreaming or hallucinating, in spite of all logical certainty?

I have been occasionally been a regular diarist and inflammatory jerk here (wink) for about two years.  My life is at so many crossroads, as our's all are, but these ones nag more at me than usual.

President Bush:  In the past few days I have begun to atone for my public failings with my wife, Laura, my children, and my entire family. The remorse I feel will always be with me. Words cannot describe how grateful I am for the love and compassion they have shown me. From those to whom much is given, much is expected. I have been given much: the love of my family, the faith and trust of the people of this nation, and the chance to lead this country. I am deeply sorry that I did not live up to what was expected of me. To every American, and to all those who believed in what I tried to stand for, I sincerely apologize...

It is not enough to simply have 'good' people or experienced people in Washington.  Without fundamental change Rwanda and Darfur are going to happen again and again. If a candidate can deliver on that change, I don't care if their name is Clinton or Obama.  But neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama are wonks on conflict and genocide, so if they're going to make foreign policy proposals you and I should be asking very earnestly where these ideas originate and what effect they will have on expendability of human life in distant corners.

The Native Times Article today: "Indian Affairs Committee finds Native American Schools, Jails and Health Facilities Crumbling".

More below.

In the case that Obama does not pull off a strong victory in Texas and Clinton wins Ohio, a cloud of ignorance emitted by Team Clinton will supposedly convince the broader public they have plausible rationale to continue the race.  A needless rehash of party arm twisting and wasted money that this country desperately must avoid like the plague.  

And why is this scenario looking likely?

UPDATE: Clinton has now claimed that Ohio is the basis of her going forward, without even knowing the Texas results.  Civil War brewing?

Let me iterate my outrage at Hillary Clinton. Why add more fuel to an obvious shit-stormer whose power is increasingly less relevent? Woo. Now that we're done with that...

Oh and while we're at it, Barack Obama is going to drug me up in Tiajuana and leave me in a bathtub without a kidney under his health insurance plan. There, now no one has to repaste Taylor Marsh on here for the day...

Meanwhile, one of our nation's leading lights, a great spiritual and moral elder has just passed on to another state.

Generational scholars Strauss and Howe dedicated their lives to analyzing the four dominant generations of the twentieth century: the GIs, the Silent, the Boomers and the X-ers.  Then, near the end of their collaborations they published Millennials Rising. The thesis of their whole canon of work is that each generation fulfills overall needs or niches from prior ones, and creates problems that future generations must solve.

The concept behind the Millennial Generation is that a national or global crisis will arise unlike anything since the GI's Depression and WWII, and the millenials will rise to meet it. Or else society itself will falter.  (Can you take a guess at how this thesis is already playing out?)

You can legitimately complain about any number of things on this site--it's run by people, who inevitably make mistakes,

Are you excited? I am a proud Obama supporter, I am stoked for his chances to take back the White House.  But it is not enough to get from a  49-49 Senate to a 54-44 Senate with cowards and pathological enablers.
 
If this election is going to be truly historic and aligning. If we want to crush and humiliate and set straight the GOP's real nature, brutality and their status in the minds of Middle America for some years.

And I think we both do. We cannot just gain pickups here. We need to have the kind of quantitative and qualitative type of victory in our Senate and House races that is both a) realistic and broadly sustainable and b) transformative.

Let me explain how we get there.

I have nothing against fair criticism of Senator Clinton, nor of calling out Terry McAuliffe, James Carville, et al for the undemocratic jackasses they are.  But there are 50 gazillion diaries acting like the Clinton people are just a bunch of morons running around with their underpants on their head.

Hello?

The Nobel prize-winning president of East Timor, Jose Ramos-Horta, is in critical condition, breathing on a ventilator.  Timorese Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao survived an attempted coup against him and Ramos-Horta. Ramos-Horta was shot in the back of the head and the stomach...  Now Gusmao has declared a 48 hour state of emergency.

Rebel leader Major Alfredo Reinado and another insurgent are dead.

Before thousands of cheering and screaming Virginians, many of them young, Obama just raised the spectre of national service.  We will get you through college, but it won't be for free he argued.  For working in a a veteran's clinic, or a homeless shelter, or the peace corps or the foreign service students will be able to afford their college dreams.  

We will invest in you and you will do your part to invest in this country.

What I have here is a warning of the most dangerous predator of the human race.  

The most horrifying story across all history is not Satan or ghosts, not man's creative power to build monsters and plagues.  But that, in the day to day world, the person manipulating you with fear of the powers of Darkness, with the threat of nuclear annhilation and ecological catastrophe may have nothing of the trait most think defines us as human: absolutely no conscience.  

There are literally millions of anti-social personalities out there.  They are in our boardrooms, in the pulpit, in Washington. They may even be in our beds smiling back at us.

Super Duper Tuesday actually was about as good as it was going to get for Obama, barring a not likely California victory (Clinton already had a huge advantage among early voters).  What matters is not who won tit for tats in that contest--Rachel Maddow of MSNBC appropriately summarizes it as a tie--but what it reveals about the candidates in the broader scheme beyond the night's results.

Matt Stoller recently referred to Obama's supporters as cultish.  Indeed there's been a lot in the blogosphere conflating candidates with the views of people unaffiliated with the campaigns. But I don't want our next president to ever believe she or he will get a free pass. All of the candidates are wrong on pretty significant things.

I wish Christopher Dodd were still in the race.  Not only would I have voted for him but he raised the bar for Democrats when dealing with a multitude of issues, from immigration reform to the Constitution.  While Edwards was demonstrating his belief in the Imperial Presidency's right to decide whether or not to go to war saying "I would not" rather than Congress has the right to wage war and Senator Clinton was notoriously lying to people on drivers' licenses for immigrants, Dodd stuck to a reasonable framework for executive leadership.

But I Digress. Dodd is no longer in the race.  I would vote for any Democratic candidate against Old Lord McCain in the general but this party would be damned stupid to nominate Hillary Clinton.

Because we have more in common than not. More below the fold...

Over a year ago hardcore Dems, political junkies neutral or supportive of progressive causes warned us. They warned us of fracture.