It's not a musical number, but a minimal hurricane heading for far southern Texas and northern Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon. Hurricane warnings are up from Corpus Christi, TX to Rio San Fernando, TAM. Tropical storm warnings extend north to San Luis Pass, TX and south to La Pesca. Forecast winds upon landfall are around 90 mph, with gusts to 115. It is expected to hit the coast late Wednesday morning, then turn westward and expire over northern Mexico. NHC site on Dolly
A vigorous low leaving the African coast has shown fewer signs of developing into anything closed in the next 24 hours. Take care and cuídense!
The saying is "it's all over when the large lady sings." Well, it's probably rude to call her large, but her voice has echoed down the decades through America's moments of triumph and sadness.
Here's a picture of Kate Smith set to her singing the 1938 arrangement of "God Bless America".
The road to the nomination for Clinton is still open. If she follows the path, she may well split the party and give the nomination to McCain, but the path is open and runs through MI and FL.
I hope that it does not turn out this way. While the power of early states to decide the nominee has declined, their power to yank a half-dozen also-rans has not. Just ask Giuliani. The DNC's threat is all that kept the 2008 primaries in 2008; without those rules, what would keep the 2012 primaries in 2012? A December 2011 primary would be worthy of the Grinch, while a November 2011 primary would facilitate unholy alliances between Presidential campaigns and municipal machines.
When the world's eyes turned to Lake County, Indiana it was Florida 2000 all over again. In 2000, the corner of the nation that led in political shenanigans was left to decide the Presidential elections. In 2008, the corner of Indiana that led in political shenanigans was left to decide the primaries.
The mayors of Hammond, East Chicago and Gary would be well-advised to pay more attention to the welfare of their constituents, now that the primary circus is moving to Appalachia. They did their candidates no favors.
First of all, should Hillary Clinton manage to win the pledged delegates, she should get the nomination. If she wins the popular vote but not the pledged delegates, then we're in an ambiguous situation.
But if the superdelegates go against the pledged delegates at the DNC and thus install Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee, what should we do?
The answer is not rioting or violence, but there will be strong and justified anger. Better to turn the anger in a productive direction. Just what is that direction? Should we do to the Democratic Party as the Democratic-Republican party did to the Federalists and the Republicans did to disaffected anti-slavery Whigs and Democrats? Should we take advantage of Republican Administrations and bring lots and lots of names to the attention of federal prosecutors?
Welcome to Part II of my Hoosier diaries -- basically a compilation of Indiana information that candidates and their supporters my find helpful. As always, this information is most useful where Indiana is really flat; there is a serious culture barrier where the hills begin.
After the Pennsylvania primaries, Indiana and North Carolina offer the richest delegate haul on May 6. The RCP average
shows Clinton with a small lead in the state while Obama enjoys a 15-point lead in North Carolina.
Here are some biased observations about this state, particularly the parts north of I-74 and west of US 231, with some history as well.
Here in West Lafayette, IN, I woke up to a low rumbling at 5:39 EDT. The sliding doors of my closet were bumping each other and the floor was shaking. So I went under the nearest doorway to wait it out.
It looks like the people of San Francisco are preparing for a game of "Capture the Torch". Pro-China protesters have been bussed in; pro-Tibet protesters have been active.
This looks like an event that deserves a LiveBlog.
Fresh from raving reviews with 37 arrests in London and a near-riot (three extinguishings!) in Paris leading to the mayor's cancellation of a welcome ceremony for the torch, the 2008 Olympic torch is headed to San Francisco.
Anyway, the route begins at McCovey Cove and most of it is along The Embarcadero. The run will end at Justin Herman Plaza. Incidentally, The Embarcadero is, at this time, open to protestors, as is a free-speech area at Herman Plaza and four other free-speech areas at some distance from the route.
Sorry folks, but I've spent too much time on here. The signal:noise ratio here is too great and a bunch of deadlines are massing in the near future.
It does not help that almost every Recommended diary is a candidate diary and that the blogosphere is polarizing between Obama and Clinton. Daily Kos is approaching the point where the ratio between readworthy diaries and everything else is approaching the Evercrack ratio, which is carefully calibrated to keep users online forever. And, frankly, I'm sick of hearing calls for Hillary to resign or Obama to resign.
I'll see you all after the Indiana primary. For now I prefer to interact with real, live Obama and Clinton supporters in meatspace, maybe do the tiny bit I can to force Buyer to spend some time and money in his sinecure district, and earn enough money to be able to give to the candidates of my choice. So, see you on May 7. I'll make sure the door doesn't hit me where the FSM split me.
Bill Clinton gave his speech in West Lafayette, Indiana. It was a reasonably good speech to 1,800 people in the main gym and 1,000 people in the auxiliary gym. Organizations at Purdue tried to get him into a more capacious hall, but the Clinton campaign preferred the high-school gym.
People got in (at least to the auxiliary gym) wearing Obama T-shirts. In the overflow room, people sat on bleachers or huddled around the barrier set up near the door where Clinton was to appear to shake hands.
I'm just wondering how many Kossacks are trusted users. Have us TUs been diligent in our duty to keep this site halfway sane?
I'm wondering because the silly season has become the griefer season, and because a very few users have been dominating the Hidden Files. (Of the last 30, 17 were the same person, who spread his trolly fingerprints in 17 separate diaries.)
How many are there of us versus people without TU status?
The charge has been laid that Barack Obama was an affirmative action candidate. His career shows some signs of affirmative action, some signs of negative action and some signs of plain good luck.
Today is the day after what Kosovars hope will be their national day and Serious People fear will be the start of another Balkan war (even though the assumed protagonists show no sign of wanting one).
Thank goodness the Serious People have already blundered -- the rest of the European continent has no history of amity with which it can lecture Balkans. Yet most of its nations are in the NATO alliance and the European Union.
Poli Sci Prof wrote an excellent diary about Hillary as Lucy Ricardo. She paints Hillary as a complex, passionate person wounded by the sexism facing women of her generation and her husband, brought up on the expectation that her real degree would be an MRS. Hillary did give up a lot when she moved with Bill to Arkansas; while she is certainly not a victim now, she certainly was in moving to Arkansas and again when Bill met Monica.
It's pretty clear that some of Hillary's calculations have gone terribly wrong. There's no room to list them in the intro -- any Obama supporter will give you a list.
This got me thinking about a liberal professor at Purdue who surprised us by stating that he supported Hillary Clinton despite obvious discrepancies between her worldview and his. He wants his daughters to know that a woman can be President. My mother, now ten years older than Hillary (though a Republican who refuses to vote) has been warming to Hillary.
