I haven't been reading diaries about The Speech today, so I don't know if I'm being redundant, or just sawing off my own personal limb, but I am filled with such an all consuming anger as to be more than a bit irrational.

I heard a masterful presentation address a renewal of American foreign policy by one of the most sophisticated minds on the international stage.

I also heard the run up.  Mincing, prissy words by small minds, herded together to throw stones at the "other" who refuses to conform to their limited, and limiting, world view.

Then I watched interviews with "regular guys", who clearly had no idea what they had seen or heard at the Tiergarten, yet felt no hesitation in parading their fear and ignorance across the stage with inartful comment.  

I have spent some time this morning thinking about Don Mikulecky's diary on the falling status of American health.

The problems are made manifest, to me, in a breaking news story from a law suit against the makers of Vytorin.   It seems that Vytorin may be a trigger for cancer.  (Reported on CNBC and Bloomberg for it's effect on the market, the story is not up yet.)  

Viagra can cause heart attack, or stroke.  Various treatments for osteoporosis can increase bone weakness.  Your asthma drug can ruin your liver, and nearly every Big Pharm hyper-marketed compound puts unrelated organs and systems at risk for fatal side effects.

We are paying billions of dollars a year to treat real, and imagined, physical defects at the risk of dying, and many physicians, and insurance companies, are paid to play within this arena of systematic harm.

Through inaction, distraction, and just plain stupidity, BushCo has sold, privatized, and given away the economic strength of America to foreign governments.

But, the problem began with Reagan.  If the leaders of the free world concern themselves only with enriching their friends and supporters, a lot of stuff can slip through the cracks.  They have provided welfare that allowed corporations to maintain self-destructive models, destroyed the working class, and sold America to the highest bidder.

Now we see what may be the final indication of the Republican dismantling of the science and technology strength of the United States, Reuters is reporting that NASA is negotiating with Japan for the purchase of the next generation of space craft.  

A tiny Librarian took it to the wall to protect your privacy a few days ago.

Children's librarian Judith Flint was getting ready for the monthly book discussion group for 8- and 9-year-olds on "Love That Dog" when police showed up.

They weren't kidding around: Five state police detectives wanted to seize Kimball Public Library's public access computers as they frantically searched for a 12-year-old girl, acting on a tip that she sometimes used the terminals.

Flint demanded a search warrant, touching off a confrontation that pitted the privacy rights of library patrons against the rights of police on official business.

Ms. Flint asked to see a warrant.

Have I got some linky goodness for you...

C-Span will be covering Howard Dean's Keynote address at 8pm, tonight.  You can check for updates, here.

They also (apparently) plan on covering several parts of the Netroots Nation convention.  You can check for updates, or watch the video (when it's uploaded) here.

Feel free to use the comment's section to wail, bitch, explain, and bemoan just why the hell you're not in Austin, and then we will form a Far Left Militant Group and go and get their stuff!  

The News and Advance, the daily paper in Lynchberg, VA - yes, that Lynchberg, VA, has released some very good news that must have pained them, sorely.

In our apparently hopeless battle to send Virgil Goode (R-VA, 05) back to the Republican Hell of Insignificance, we may just have found a candidate up to the challenge!

The fund raising figures are out, and "Our Guy" is showing sufficient strength against "That Nice Boy", to finally give Virgil a run for his money.  These figures should, at the very least, peak the interest of the DCCC.  (The DCCC has been less than helpful in the past, when we tried to unseat Virgil.)

Note:  "That Nice Boy" is the epithet uttered by elderly women in the 5th whenever the name of Virgil comes up.

I am a great believer in courtesy.  I like a touch of formality in my dealings with others.  Grace and charm beguile me.  

I always try to put myself in the other guy's shoes and understand their point of view.  I am quick to assume that lack of information can be rectified, and misinformation can be corrected, but such attempts must always be accompanied by gentle, thoughtful probing of the source of the faulty meme, and must never be done harshly.

I have recently begun to question this kinder, gentler approach.

I just returned from 4 days in West Virginia and Kentucky.  I threw my trusty and battered carry all into the back of the van, loaded my traveling companion (Mr. Nick, the Golden Bear, 110 pounds of shedding goofiness, who answers to a much more refined, "Nick") and headed down the road.

I spent much of World War II in the back seat of a Buick Roadmaster.  My father, who was charged with problem solving in the war effort, was sent thither and yon, often with short warning, and usually to places with limited access.  So he would pile us all in the car and off we would go.

Some of my earliest memories are of that brief flash of road, heading over the next mountain, several miles ahead.  I'm trained, and imbued, with wanderlust.  Jumping in the car and heading down the road is in my Top 5 list of favorite things to do.

There is a great disparity between those who will face difficulty if the predicted economic crash arrives, and those who either chose to ignore, or feel that they will not be effected by, the hardships we may be facing.  We have a long cultural history of distain for "survivalists", since their actions do not confirm our fondest myths.  But, sans tin foil hat, there seems to be a looming crisis on the horizon, and attempts to deny, ridicule, or dismiss it, could lead to chaos.

We are in the midst of a severe recession.  Fuel prices are making it difficult to get to work, and many of us have had to rethink our driving habits in a serious way.  Winter heating costs are threatening to sky rocket, and government assistance is shrinking.

Our entire food delivery system is dependent on a processing and packaging structure that is petroleum based, and the costs are predicted to double within the next 6 to 12 months.  Truckers will have to increase charges to offset the rising fuel costs.

This article, in the Roanoke Times, should be a heads up to everyone in the country.

Roanoke, Virginia is in a very temperate region, with winter temperatures falling from slightly below 20 degrees and rising to a high of over 100 degrees, with an annual average of between 60 degrees and 80 degrees.

With the startling statement:

No matter how you heat, be prepared for costs to rise significantly this winter.

our local newspaper is delivering a dire warning and begging for people to begin to prepare for the coming Fall/Winter season.

This was the lede 2 hours ago.  This is an attempt to paint Senator Barack Obama as a Waffler.

First let me state CLEARLY, there is no change, there has never been any change, and there will be no change in Barack Obama's position on ending the Iraq war.  He has been saying since he entered the race that after "consultation" with the Generals on the ground, he would issue an order to the Joint Chiefs to prepare an immediate plan to end the war.  He has said it will take 18 months, at the rate of one to two brigades per month, to get the troops home.  He has said it may be necessary to leave a few troops in place to guard the embassy, and finalize the training of Iraqi police and military.  That's what he said, that's what he is saying, and that is what he will do.

That is NOT how the raving Cable Guys and Gals are presenting a deliberate misreading of a statement he made this morning.  And, although we know the press can't do nuance, this has Karl's sticky finger all over it.

In a classic children's story, now considered too non-PC to be widely read, Joel Chandler Harris created a fictional character with the name of Uncle Remus.

Uncle Remus is a fictional character, the title character and fictional narrator of a collection of African American folktales adapted and compiled by Joel Chandler Harris, published in book form in 1881. A journalist in post-Reconstruction Atlanta, Georgia's West End, Harris produced seven Uncle Remus books.

Uncle Remus is a collection of animal stories, songs, and oral folklore, collected from Southern United States blacks. Many of the stories are didactic, much like those of Aesop's fables and the stories of Jean de La Fontaine. Uncle Remus is a kindly old slave who serves as a storytelling device, passing on the folktales to children gathered around him.

and, I suspect, even harder to read.  

Having survived the Purity Wars that destroyed all of the movement toward Progressive politics in a blood bath of self-referential pettiness in the late 1960's, having laughed along with many others at the jokes about "circular firing squads", having grimaced at the constant smug observations that "this is the Democrat's to lose, and they always find a way", I see the same foolish tendencies growing daily in this community.

One of the things that has given me hope during the past, dark days of Gingrich/Rovian politics is that they would destroy themselves.  In a Constitutional democracy no individual, or small groups of individuals, demanding ideological purity, can long survive.  People come to their senses.  They break out of the head lock of fear, and hate, and narrow self interests to emerge wiser and less vulnerable to the tactics that captured them.  It has certainly taken longer than I hoped, but it is happening.

Born in New York City, raised and educated in California, a world traveler, moving in power circles for much of my professional life, I have had a great deal of exposure to famous people.  Governors, Mayors, academic super stars, film and stage personalities, I have met and known a lot of famous people.  Some times they are pleasant and competent, and some times they are cardboard figures, propped up by their celebrity or office.  Always, they are just people, replete with the foibles of you and me.  I have never met a single one who commanded my passion, or dedication, or sacrifice based on their status, or fame.

I never became a fan. Even when young, I never understood the screaming, fainting, and hysteria surrounding Frank Sinatra, or the Beatles.  I knew Frank as a pathologically generous and caring man with an enormous talent.  I viewed the Beatles as creating a remarkable new form of music, sophisticated and complex.  But I never screamed.    

I'm not an attorney.  I'm not a legal scholar.  I'm nothing but a lowly Cognitive Scientist, weary from the academic wars.  I'm smart, and very well educated, but as are many of my friends and contemporaries, I am a specialist, with scant detailed knowledge of the many arcane topics that daily impinge on my tired old brain.

When facing a decision outside of my area of expertise I am forced to fall back on the opinions and evaluations of those whom I have come to trust.  That trust is awarded based on experience with similar decisions and topics that have proven to be accurate, and a feeling that the person I turn to for information is a straight shooter, at least as smart as the average bear, and touches on the issues of immediate concern to me.

This is, of course, a hell of a way to determine how one should come down on a decision such as the FISA Bill.

Could it be because traitorous Republican politicians, and their media hacks, light the flame every four years?

Fanning the flames, in their usual unpleasant, Republican way, Politico is re-hashing the Elian Gonzales saga.

You remember Elian, don't you?  He was the six year old boy, rescued from an inner tube, after his mother's escape attempt from Cuba ended in a tragic drowning.  The tragedy became a cause celeb when his father insisted that the boy had been removed without his permission, and he wanted Elian returned to Cuba.  Distant relatives in Miami found their 15 minutes of fame with a dreadful display of hysterics, insisting that the boy must remain with them.

People marched.  Horns were blown.  Politicians postured.  And, Elian was returned to the father who had legal custody under any scheme of law.  

Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, an independent who rode his role as the lawyer for Elian’s Miami relatives into the mayor’s office in a 2001 upset victory, has pointedly declined to endorse Obama.

In keeping with its strategy of delicacy, of never clearly stating its philosophy, of burying its motives in the cat box of history, the Democratic Party has concocted a pile of acronyms designed to befuddle even the most dedicated among you.  They form groups with different purposes but confound their existence.  They blend "D's", and "C's", and even the occasional "S" or "N", in a salad bowl, dressed with piety, tossed with abandon, and designed to serve as a shorthand that conceals both the intent, and the function, of organizations whose sole reason for beings is to raise money to further their goals.  I refer, of course, to the DNC, DCCC, and the DSCC.

This would not be of serious concern if these groups shared goals.  The problem arises when the careful and attentive reader can not discriminate between these groups, and subsequently assigns the vices of one to them all.

You have achieved "compromise".

You have compromised the Constitution of the United States.  You have compromised your role as the writers of law.  You have compromised your authority to perform over site of the Executive Branch.  You have compromised your honor, your oath, and your right to stand as the Representatives of the American people.

You have instituted "protections".

You have protected the criminal acts of a frightened, misguided, and criminal Executive Branch that has lead this country to the edge of the abyss.