It took me a while to figure out why the rule shifting by the Clinton campaign and supporters was pissing me off so badly until I talked with a friend of mine.

At the outset of this election we had a candidate that was close to an incumbent as you could have without actually being one. Clinton has been a household name for almost 20 years. I bet more voters would recognize her than Dick Cheney if they ran into them in a grocery store. Clinton was earning free air time that Obama and Edwards and the others couldn't get because the media had indicated that she essentially had this in the bag. Before the first caucus was held, Clinton had nearly 10% of the delegates she needed to win already sewn up due to her party connections with superdelegates.

It's now day 3 or so of the Ferraro fluff-up, and we've had a bit of time to vent our spleens over her comments (or defend them, as the case may be). But nobody is asking why she said them, and said them now. Well, this is Clinton's last play, and it's a big one and it just might work. And we can look to Bush's invasion of Iraq as why it may work, since Clinton is drawing off his playbook.

There's been a lot of hand wringing over Hillary's ad "True" and how Obama's appearance differs from the original debate footage. Some have suggested it is accidental. Some have suggested it's deliberate and racist. I propose neither. I propose that it's incompetent.

I salute you. I salute you in your unwavering pride in your nation. You are indeed the true American heroes, standing steadfast and resolute with your nation and all that it stands for. While some would proclaim their pride to be tempered, you do not. When some would suggest that their pride could be greater, yours could not be greater nor less. Let us examine where these unamericans and traitors fall short, yet you stand tall.

It pains me to write those words, but I accept evidence when it is presented to me. After 2000 and 2004, the usual right-wing pundits chastized Democrats as being coastal elites, not caring about the interests of voters in flyover states like Nebraska and South Carolina. 'Hollywood liberal', 'latte-sipping intellectual' we were called. They called out the Democrats for treating people that live outside of top media markets as rubes, unable to fully grasp the issues that plague this country. The suggestion was that we treat all the 'God people' as irrational hillbillies.

Southern California is suffering through its regular fire outbreak. For those unfamiliar, a few times each year a particular weather condition develops which causes the winds to blow from the hot, dry desert to the coast, rather than the other way around. The result is that SoCal suffers through near-perfect conditions for fires to develop and spread out of control.

Today we started such a cycle expected to last 4 days or so, and the fires are breaking out. 10,000 acres and 5 homes lost in Malibu. One firefighter killed in San Diego. Over a dozen fires reported so far. Unfortunately, SoCal is a large place and these events develop extremely rapidly. The news really isn't equipped to track a few dozen spontaneous events scattered over a 200 mile coastline.

Two fires have broken out in the Tustin/Irvine/Newport Beach area, but I can't find much coverage of them. One seems fairly large. I'm sure other areas have the same situation - a dangerous fire and no information flowing. And that's why I'm here. Kossacks spread information like nobody else. Share the news, folks.

Following what happened at Virginia Tech today, there's a lot of attention obviously being paid to guns here. But this isn't about guns. Columbine wasn't about guns. These are stories about communtiies - ones that aren't functioning the way they should be.

Other countries have the same gun ownership rates as we do and don't have these problems. Why is that? The left and right are discussing entirely the wrong things. Neither more or fewer guns solves this problem. Neither more nor less regulation does either. They might result in larger hurtles to cover, or a little more time to identify a problem, but the guns aren't the problem and supply-side thinking won't do a thing to solve the problem.

Dave Winer, one of the first bloggers (coming up on 7 years) had an interesting idea yesterday:

I just got off the phone with Sylvia, who passed on a great idea that just might work, to help George Bush leave office early. Here's how it goes. We all contribute to a fund, that hopefully would contain a lot of money, say $150 million. If Bush resigns on the first day, he gets the whole $150 million. Every day he waits, the fund goes down by 10 percent, so there's a real incentive for him to act quickly. On Day 2 it's worth only $135 million. On Day 3, $121.5 million. And so on. It's kind of a simplified version of Deal or No Deal.

Prior to the Tan Nguyen scandal last week where latino Dems received a letter telling them that if they were immigrants they could be arrested for attempting to vote, hundreds of Orange County Democrats and Independents found that their voter registration had been changed to Republican.

The Amish self-insure and even though the hospitals have waived some of the expenses, there will be rebuilding costs for the school, support for the family of the assailant (the Amish has extended support to the family), long-term care costs for the girls who survived and a host of additional expenses that the community will incur due to this event.

Even a small donation will be welcome so please consider showing your support to a community who epitomizes hard work, peace, and forgiveness.

Now is not the time to act. Now is the time to sit back and watch. The bill needs to be defeated no matter the content. The Geneva Convention is fine as is. It needs no clarification, therefore the Dems position is that there should be no bill. The content is immaterial. Let the GOP and White House work out the details - they don't matter. There's no point having Reid and Pelosi arguing over it, and there's no point in us arguing over it.

You can download the recording here - along with video time synced with the call. It's large - about 40MB zipped, so you can't just stream it. It's very disturbing.

On the recording, you hear a gentleman - could be any one of us - pleading for help as the building burns around him. That was someone's son, husband, and father. You might feel sad and angry after watching the video. Imagine how his friends and relatives felt. Consider how you feel from hearing that one individual, let alone the 3,000 others.

A constant stream of hate speech can be found right here at DKos. No, I know what you're thinking - we can't be held responsible for quoting Republicans or the reports back from the brave soldiers performing recon over at the Free Republic. But that's not what I'm referring to.

Here are some examples of mine. I encourage you to participate below.

To say it was unexpected is an understatement. To say the media response was overdone, and continues to be, is also an understatement. But the reason for the response is totally understandable as JMK is the vehicle by which the public is seeking closure for that other three-letter acronym that has also evaded justice: OBL.

John Mark Karr is Osama Bin Laden.

After 6 weeks of warfare between Israel and Hezbollah, much at the expense of civilians both in Lebanon and Israel, the efforts to return people to their homes and help rebuld their lives have begun. Once again, our compassionate conservatives are on the job, pledging money and support for those who have suffered.

Some interesting quotes from the article's sources:

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is scrambling to assemble a plan to help rebuild Lebanon, hoping that by competing with Hezbollah for the public's favor it can undo the damage the war has inflicted on its image and goals for the Middle East.

Administration officials fear that unless they move quickly to demonstrate U.S. commitment, the Lebanese will turn more fully to the militant group, which has begun rolling out an ambitious reconstruction program that Washington believes is bankrolled by Iran.

After yesterday's household ruling that declared Kitty Bimbo's illegal household spy program unconstitutional, the reaction from the feline community was immediate and predictable:

She was appointed by the dog.

And today we get the official reaction from the 'Decider' himself:

I would say that those who herald this decision simply do not understand the nature of the neighborhood in which we live.

Unfortunately, we understand all too well...we now live in a world where the homeowner rules are simply a piece of paper and that the rule of law only applies to burying bones in the backyard.

But of course Kitty Bimbo didn't stop there.  What would a feline press briefing be without lies and fearmongering?

CNN Report

AP report