I wrote the following diary two weeks ago. Now that Edwards has dropped out of the race, it has new meaning. Edwards supporters now need to make a decision on whom to support, but, just as importantly, we need to have a good reason to put our passion and our money behind the eventual nominee.

......

Word has it that Obama has a long liberal history as a community activist and that Hillary was the liberal foil to the triangulating mind that was the other half of the Billary hybrid. And yet, and yet...

Word has it that Obama has a long liberal history as a community activist and that Hillary was the liberal foil to the triangulating mind that was the other half of the Billary hybrid. And yet, and yet...

and only a test. For the next sixty seconds you will hear a sharp, piercing tone, which will make you immediately want to donate to the democratic candidate of your choice :-)

For the next sixty seconds you will hear a sharp, piercing tone, which will make you immediately want to donate to the democratic candidate of your choice :-)

For the next sixty seconds you will hear a sharp, piercing tone, which will make you immediately want to donate to the democratic candidate of your choice :-)

For the next sixty seconds you will hear a sharp, piercing tone, which will make you immediately want to donate to the democratic candidate of your choice :-)

For the next sixty seconds you will hear a sharp, piercing tone, which will make you immediately want to donate to the democratic candidate of your choice :-)

The great democrat and friend of dailykos, Charlie Brown, is running for Congress in the beautiful CA-04 district in the foothills of the Sierras (currently misrepresented by the Abramoff-crony John Doolittle). Well, Charlie is having a birthday party at the Opera House in old-town Roseville, and we're invited! Actually, we're here :-)

We will be liveblogging for the next few hours with pictures and, hopefully, video. Please join us below and in the comments over the next few hours as we add more!

There is a huge snafu under way that may threaten the integrity of the democratic primary results. According to Juan Cole:

A specter haunts the Democratic Party, and it is the exclusion of Michigan and Florida delegates from the Democratic Convention.

Both the Republican and the Democratic National Committees have been penalizing states that move their primaries up to January, as Michigan and Florida did.

The DNC says it will only recognize the Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina primaries in January. Michigan and Florida won't be accepted.

How this may cause Hillary to win after the flip...

I was lucky enough to be able to see Al Gore speak at a Barbara Boxer fundraiser in San Francisco a few hours ago. He spoke extemporaneously, without notes, teleprompter, or an earphone (unlike you know who). He spoke with intelligence and he spoke with passion.

The quote in the title above did not come from him or from Boxer. It came from the crowd. When he finished his speech, and after the applause went on for a minute or two, a chant arose from the audience: Run Al, Run! It went on for minutes, with Gore looking away and motioning for the audience to stop - a request that was honored entirely in the breach :-)

After this, Boxer said a most interesting thing...

I mentioned in some comments the other day that I would be attending the Gore/Boxer fundraiser reception at the St. Francis in San Francisco on Thursday (tomorrow). I was planning to liveblog it, or at least post a diary after it was over.

But five minutes ago I received an email from Barbara Boxer, saying that Gore asked to reschedule at the last minute so that he could "travel abroad tomorrow for an exciting and urgent mission that could result in a major breakthrough in the fight against global warming".

Hmmm...

Yesterday there was a recommended diary by one of my favorite writers on intelligence issues, Larry Johnson, concerning Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki's statement that Blackwater would no longer be allowed to operate in Iraq. Larry said, in part:

First problem.  Blackwater does not have a license to operate in Iraq and does not need one.  

I checked Juan Cole's blog (my favorite writer on Iraq) and didn't see anything on the license, so I shot him an email. He had a quite different take on this matter...

According to the ever-credulous AP, from Yahoo:

ERIE, Pa. - An Erie cancer researcher has found a way to burn salt water, a novel invention that is being touted by one chemist as the "most remarkable" water science discovery in a century.

John Kanzius happened upon the discovery accidentally when he tried to desalinate seawater with a radio-frequency generator he developed to treat cancer. He discovered that as long as the salt water was exposed to the radio frequencies, it would burn.

The discovery has scientists excited by the prospect of using salt water, the most abundant resource on earth, as a fuel.

Wow! Incredible! Literally, that is.

Analysis on the flip...

Juan Cole, Professor of History at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, will be leading what I'm sure will be one of the most fascinating panel discussions at yKos, which he describes below in an email:

Dear Mark:

Thanks again, so much, for helping make the Yearly Kos panel happen.  It is spectacular:

John Mearsheimer, U of Chicago (of 'Israel Lobby' fame)

Fariba Zarinebaf (Northwestern U., Iranian history)

Manan Ahmed (blogger, Chapati Mystery; grad at U of Chicago)

Dennis Perrin (blogger, Red State Son)

me.

I was wondering if you'd be willing to put up a Daily Kos diary on our panel, since Caroline suggested one, to publicize it.  I'll link back from Informed Comment, so the word should get out.

cheers  Juan

http://www.juancole.com

Wow! Those who know Juan know that he doesn't use words like "spectacular" lightly. Looks like they will be talking about more than just Iraq. Join me below the fold for more on this great panel.

I saw this on Glenn Greenwald's excellent blog here: http://www.salon.com/...

UPDATE: The Politico -- appropriately enough -- is hosting the first debate for GOP presidential candidates, and is deciding which questions to submit based upon popular vote. Silent Patriot of Crooks and Liars had an excellent idea -- to submit a question asking the candidates to state their views as to whether the President has the power to imprison U.S. citizens without charges or process of any kind (a la Jose Padilla), in light of the prior revealing answers from Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney to that question.

S.P. has now submitted the question to The Politico, and has also posted instructions for how you can vote for that question, to ensure that it gets asked (you basically go here, search for "Silent Patriot," and click the "I LIKE THIS QUESTION" button under that question; it's now the most popular question, so it should be at the top).

That question is at the top of the most popular list!. On the flip, how to vote for it to keepit there...

Cross-posted at MLW

I love MSOC like a sister. I pimped MLW on my first videoblog. I sat at her table at yKos2006. She is truly excellent, and I am grateful for the work she has done, first at dKos and then in creating this blog.

I don't know pyrrho as well, but I like his writing and have enjoyed reading his stuff here and at dKos.

I say the above because I am about to lay some "elder brother" advice on both of them.

...

I'm sure that most of you have heard about the allegations by the Bush (mal)Administration of evil-doings on the part of Iran. The Neocons have been trying to blame some of the attacks on US troops as being carried out with weapons (shaped charges used in IED's) that were made in Iran. There are a few reality-based problems with these charges and, apparently, even some of the Bushies are having trouble swallowing this one.

LA Times:

WASHINGTON — Bush administration officials acknowledged Friday that they had yet to compile evidence strong enough to back up publicly their claims that Iran is fomenting violence against U.S. troops in Iraq.

Gee whiz, I wonder why? Maybe because the claims are, in fact, lies?

"The truth is, quite frankly, we thought the briefing overstated, and we sent it back to get it narrowed and focused on the facts," national security advisor Stephen J. Hadley said Friday.

Truth? Facts? Wow, I didn't know Hadley even knew those words existed.

More after the flip...

This is from one of the best MSM venues, the McClatchy Washington Bureau(formerly the Washington bureau of Knight-Ridder):

WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is transforming the ranks of the nation's top federal prosecutors by firing some and appointing conservative loyalists from the Bush administration's inner circle who critics say are unlikely to buck Washington.

The newly appointed U.S. attorneys all have impressive legal credentials, but most of them have few, if any, ties to the communities they've been appointed to serve, and some have had little experience as prosecutors.

This was originally broken by Talkingpointsmemo (see the spectacular TPM coverage here http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/... but this is the first MSM mention I've seen that connects the dots, and what an ugly picture is revealed.

More after the flip...

One year ago today, Chris announced the MyDD Polling Project:

Ever since the 2003 primary season, the notion of political blogs conducting or commissioning their own telephone polls has flickered to the surface every now and then. A few months ago, Impeach PAC became the first blog to actually go through with it, raising enough money to commission Zogby to run a poll on impeachment.

That was really cool and impressive stuff by Impeach PAC, but now here at MyDD we are going to take things at least one step further. As our first move in what we hope will become a semi-annual series of netroots commissioned polls, MyDD is going to commission a comprehensive nationwide poll that will ask twenty questions that most polling firms, especially those attached to commercial news organizations, seem unable to ask themselves.

The questions concerned Impeachment, and the results back then were that a plurality favored Congressional consideration of impeachment. Unfortunately, those polls are no longer being done, so any possible present desire (fervor?) for impeachment on the part of the electorate can be oh-so-conveniently ignored.

Ah, what to do? ....

Scott Adams (think Dilbert) has opened a can of whoop-ass on torture, in a manner that will appeal the all sides of the "debate":

Lately I've moved from "pretty certain" to "doubtful" about the effectiveness of torture.

Today I'm addressing only whether torture sometimes works better than conventional interrogation. If torture doesn't work better than the alternatives, not ever, then you don't need to discuss morality or world opinion because torture doesn't even pass the first filter. I'm not saying that morality and world opinion aren't important -- you just don't need to worry about them unless torture at least produces good results.

Can he be serious? For the "yes and no" answer, see below...

War seems to make for strange bedfellows, and with the war of aggression that Bush so disasterously made on Iraq the bedfellows are strange indeed. Only a phenomenal screw-up like Bush and the neocons could have driven Saudi Arabia and Israel into each others arms.

According to Juan Cole (click here for the whole post, it's excellent as usual):

Meanwhile, a de facto Israeli-Saudi alliance appears to be building against Iran and the Shiites. Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz is now saying that the 2002 Beirut peace plan put forward by then crown prince--now King--Abdullah of Saudi Arabia must be the basis for going forward with an Arab-Israeli peace process. Abdullah got the Arab League to offer Israel full recognition and political and economic relations if only they'd go back to the 1967 borders and recognize a Palestinian state.

Wow.

More wows after the flip...

North Korea, which has recently tested a nuclear explosive (a fizzle, it would seem), has now offered Russia exclusive rights to its natural uranium deposits, in exchange for Russia's backing of NK in the stalled six-party talks concerning sanctions against NK in response to NK's nuclear program:

http://news.yahoo.com/...

Exerpts after the jump...