Ruh-Roh! Hillary Clinton Leads Thompson and Romney, Trails McCain and Giuliani
Rasmussen polling shows that Hillary beats Fred Thompson, 48%-43%. She trounces Mitt Romney, 50%-41%. On the other hand, Giuliani squeaks past Hillary 47%-44%, and our man John McCain beats her 48%-42%.
I keep telling you folks, nominate Thompson and Romney if you want to hear the words, "President-Elect Clinton" next November. Hillary is going to get the nomination; even the nutroots seem to have figured that one out. Now the question is whether the Republicans have figured out who's going to beat her.
But what both Obama and Clinton have figured out is that the best way to protect themselves from Republican criticism (aka "rightwing ammo") in the general election is by not allowing their positions and their persona to be shaped by the hard left. If Obama is nominated, the left-wing bloggers will do their bit by urging leftists (the only group with whose voting pattern they even arguably can influence) to vote for him. And, having kept his distance from these bloggers, Obama will be in a good position to compete for independent and centrist voters.
The same situation will obtain if, as seems likely, Hillary is the nominee.
But I had to chortle when I got over to the Jerome Armstrong post, because it is thoroughly deluded:
In Obama latest, he sent me an email titled, "What a movement looks like?" His campaign probably didn't notice the slip, but it's an obvious truth--that adding that "?" in the title. Maybe, he thinks, he's in one... maybe not... who can tell? He wouldn't have a clue, I'm beginning to think-- that the campaign really doesn't know what a movement is made up of and are fumbling in the dark amidst their media-created momentum (which is getting primed to turn on its creation). And who's got Obama's back when the media does turns on its creation? The netroots doesn't; he's never aligned with the existing movement that began with Dean in '02, swelled for Wesley Clark in '03, led Dean to the DNC Chair and propelled the Hackett and Lamont candidacies, leading to the surge of activists voting for Democrats in '06.
Yeah, they did a lot for Howard Dean in '02, and Weasely Clark in '03, so much that these two combined for 2 primary wins in 2004. And they propelled the Hackett and Lamont candidacies to defeat, not victory, remember?
It's ludicrous that some point toward the outreach and early partnership that Edwards has done with the blogging community and the netroots in the same manner that a candidate reaches out to an issue base group, and and argue from there that Obama doesn't kowtow to such groups. First of all, that's bs, he does plenty of pandering and is very ordinary in that regard; but more fundamentally, this is the base of the Democratic party's rapid response team. The issue is combating the rightwing machine in unison with Democratic candidates, but you can't partner with a candidate that not inclined to join the partisan progressive movement. In all those emails, Obama has never once even associated with the word Democrat or Democratic, not mentioning either word even once. Edwards and Clinton do. Whose nomination is Obama running for?
Translation: He panders to us, just not enough to make us feel important.
Thompson: The Supreme Court has attempted to delineate the constitutionally appropriate roles for individual and governmental decision-making on the issue of abortion. Beyond that, I believe that the federal government should not interfere with individual convictions and actions in this area
I would make an exception to this general rule of governmental non-interference in a very limited number of cases where government has a compelling interest in promoting the public welfare. For instance, I believe that states should be allowed to impose various restrictions if they so choose.
I've said in the past that I think there ought to be room in the Republican Party for pro-choice candidates. However, I have to admit that I'm a little surprised that three of the top four candidates for the Republican nomination (Thompson, Romney and Giuliani have all at various times been in favor of retaining legalized abortion.
First Rachel was raped. Then she was a passenger on one of the London Tube trains that was blown up on 7/7/05. And after that, she was stalked by a cyber-kook. And then the London blogging community came together to catch the stalker.
I'm not going in today, because need to rest up, but I bloody well am getting on the tube on Monday. And yes, I probably will feel scared and I probably will remember the bomb, but as I said to someone yesterday, when we were on the train stuck underground, coughing, 'well, we've now established that we can survive a tube bomb, so sod it, yes, I am going to travel again'.
I don't see what else to do really. Today, lots of people on the tube will be worrying about what if and whether they'd cope, and I 'll know I did cope, we all coped, which is kind of empowering really. I'm scared but I'm angry, so I'm using the anger to get through it. We all need to go to work. Life goes on.
And then the harassment began. Felicity Jane Lowde began a campaign of stalking Rachel (and others). Eventually she was arrested and was scheduled for trial. But Lowde did not show up for her trial, and apparently was on the lam in London. However, she continued her campaign of harassment, apparently using Cyber-Cafes to make her posts. So the London blogging community put out a call for people to look for her, and attempt to track her down, which finally happened late last week.
"Following tip-offs from members of the public who were aware of the Find the Stalker blogger campaign, Felicity Jane Lowde was arrested in a cyber-café in Brick Lane on 6 June and taken into police custody overnight," said North on her blog.
"For me, I don't feel like dancing. I am just thankful this is over (or almost over, as I am sure Lowde will appeal her conviction, and her sentence too, when she is sentenced)."
Lowde was refused bail and will be remanded in custody until 28 June pending psychiatric and pre-sentence reports.
The woman faces a maximum jail sentence of six months or a fine of up to £5,000.
Kudos to Rachel, who's now a survivor three times over.
According to popular folklore, Chinese people should take their surnames from a list of 100 names.
But as the country's population continues to soar, the excess of Wangs, Lis and Zhangs is leading to confusion.
There are now 93,000 people called Wang Tao alone, the China Daily newspaper said in reporting the review by the Ministry of Public Security, the police service, which handles identity registration.
Not sure how many people are named Wang Dang Doodle, though.
Meanwhile, Islamic fundamentalists have found a way around the prohibition against unmarried men and women working together:
First came the breast-feeding fatwa. It declared that the Islamic restriction on unmarried men and women being together could be lifted at work if the woman breast-fed her male colleagues five times, to establish family ties.
As part of a military effort to develop non-lethal weapons, the proposal suggested, "One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior."
The documents show the Air Force lab asked for $7.5 million to develop such a chemical weapon.
"The Ohio Air Force lab proposed that a bomb be developed that contained a chemical that would cause enemy soliders to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers became irresistably attractive to one another," Hammond said after reviwing the documents.
Let's remember that the Pentagon did not approve funding for this "weapon"; it was just a proposal like lots of other proposals. I would certainly say that the Pentagon should consider all possible weapons; in the winnowing process most of the kooky ideas (like this one) will end up on the floor.
