Hillary fo VP (Republican Ticket)

Had Barry taken my advice, he could now withdraw his VP offer to Hillary. He could say that Hillary has made a good case for being VP, she certainly seems "ready to go". Unfortunately, it seems like Hillary is making the case to be McCain's VP. Frankly, she's off her rocker if you ask me: power hungry at any cost, even if it hurts the Dems and the country.

"Have you noticed the pattern?" Clinton wrote in an e-mail to supporters. "Every time our campaign demonstrates its strength and resilience, people start to suggest we should end our pursuit of the Democratic nomination. Those anxious to force us to the sidelines aren't doing it because they think we're going to lose the upcoming primaries. The fact is, they're reading the same polls we are, and they know we are in a position to win."

This is simply not true. Obama is up 60/40 in the polls here in North Carolina. Even if she did win 'em all....it's too late. Too late for a graceful exit, and too late to get the VP nod, unless McCain picks you.

Judas, My Man!

Were You There?

When Jeremiah Wright was a White House guest? Hillary was. Let's all think back to the wonderful events of the Clinton administration back on September 11, 1998:

"According to an account by James Bennet, former White House correspondent who has since left The Times:

With tears in his eyes, President Clinton told a roomful of clerics this morning that he had sinned, speaking just hours before the world was presented a painstaking account by prosecutors of when, where and how.

Addressing an annual prayer breakfast at the White House, Mr. Clinton drew on the New Testament, the Yom Kippur liturgy and Ernest Hemingway as he made his most abject confession yet of personal failure, while declaring that he would defend and redeem his Presidency.

‘’I don’t think there is a fancy way to say that I have sinned,'’ he admitted softly, saying that after resisting expressions of contrition he had reached ‘’the rock-bottom truth of where I am.'’
For the first time, Mr. Clinton also asked for forgiveness from Monica S. Lewinsky, on the day that the details of their intimate relationship — details that he had denied and struggled to suppress — poured out through the Internet, whose wonders as a tool of communication he has so often extolled."

Oddly enough, Hillary's schedule on 9/11/98 shows her going to a "Bombing Victims Memorial" after the prayer breakfast. I think the important thing here is not to smear Hillary with Wright's presence in the White House, but to remind us of what was going on in the Clinton administration at the time.
Whatever good came from the Clintons' time in office, and there were a lot of good things, in the end he/they were not honorable, and even those of us who defended the Clintons against the right wing attack machine, were glad to see them finally leave the White House. After all the money for pardons and money for the library, I figured they were done. We know these people, all too well, we know better.

Clinton Library Builder Missing

I'm not all that into right-wing conspiracies, or the Clinton ones either, but here's another story from Little Rock about a man who "showed up missing":

AP: "John Glasgow was the chief financial officer of CDI Contractors LLC of Little Rock, owned by department-store chain Dillard's Inc. and the estate of co-founder Bill Clark. It has built or remodeled many of Dillard's 300-plus department stores and put up some of Arkansas' signature projects, including Bill Clinton's presidential library,...

...John Glasgow had a healthy salary, with an opportunity to pick up stock in the construction company where he worked. He was the kind of guy who paid back a $500 bonus he got for completing an anti-smoking program because he started to light up again.

But now Glasgow has been missing since Jan. 28, with his car found abandoned the next day, and family and police say it's impossible to tell whether he killed himself, was abducted or left to start a new life elsewhere.

His family said the easygoing 45-year-old felt overwhelmed and anxious about a company audit, but the company says no money is missing.

Police say there is no evidence of foul play, and no clues to his whereabouts.

"He may be under some kind of compulsion ... some kind of blackmail, that's a scenario you could dream up," said his brother, Roger Glasgow. "We're not suggesting any of these scenarios because we just don't know. But it does open up a Pandora's box of possibilities."

Hmmmm. Makes me wonder about those tax returns the Clinton's haven't released, and the names and dollar donations for the Clinton Library. Just who gave them their fortune? Hillary used $5 million of it for her campaign already, and I think we deserve to know where it came from. I'm not drawing any conclusions....

2008 ACC Champions

Chris Duhon: Duke Role Model

The fallout from Duke's loss to Carolina last weekend continues, as one of Duke's top pros Chris Duhon sets the example for future Duke stars:

"Duhon was benched during Sunday's loss at Detroit after missing the morning shoot-around. Duhon, a Duke product who attended his alma mater's game against North Carolina on Saturday night, flew to Detroit late and said his hotel wake-up service didn't work and caused him to miss the shoot-around....

‘‘I probably won't be back. I don't know what the summer has for me,'' Duhon said on the station....

What may have been most distressing to the Bulls (and GM John Paxon) was Duhon's reaction after Sunday's game.

‘‘I don't play anyway, so it doesn't have that much of an effect on me,'' Duhon said."

Nice, gotta appreciate that attitude. Can't you just see Hansbrough doing something like this? Ha!

Camille Slams Clinton

Camille Paglia is all over the place in this article on Salon, but I just had to point out what she is saying about Hillary these days:

"Media misogyny has reached an all-time high," screeched the National Organization for Women in a press release titled "Ignorance and Venom: The Media's Deeply Ingrained Sexism." Groan. If women are going to play in the geopolitical big league, they'd better toughen up and learn how to deal with all the curveballs. Never has the soppy emotionalism of old-guard feminist reasoning been on such open and embarrassing display. How has Hillary, who rode her husband's coattails to the top and who trashed every woman he seduced or assaulted, become such a feminist heroine? What has she ever achieved on her own -- aside from the fiasco of healthcare reform?

And if the media is treating Hillary in a gendered way, hasn't she herself constantly and cynically dramatized her embattled womanhood? It began with her snappish defense of her hangdog husband during the Gennifer Flowers imbroglio of 1992. Blame tail-chasing Bill, from Little Rock on, for sexualizing the popular perception of the Clintons. Nubile, exploited Monica Lewinsky will always hover around Hillary like ghostly baggage. Bill's serial abuses betray a profound ambivalence about and deep-seated hostility to women -- something the Clintons' giddy feminist flacks just don't see. Why was Hillary flying around the world to those 80 countries anyhow -- building her résumé while leaving her randy hubby unleashed? Anyone who thinks Bill's exploits are going to stop after Hillary is president has, well, a screw loose. New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's entrapment in a sex scandal is coming at a particularly inopportune moment for the Clintons, since it simply reminds everyone again of tawdry, furtive, high-placed adultery.

It's time to go, Hillary.

Hillary: Face Reality

Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor in President Bill's administration, and longtime friend of the Clintons, has this to say about Hillary's continuing campaign:

"This is the first time in my memory that a major candidate in a primary has said that the other party's nominee would be a better president than his or her own primary opponent. We also had the outpouring of negative advertising from her campaign that both candidates had largely managed to avoid up to this point.

... the reality is that she can only win by convincing large numbers of superdelegates to join her and re-engineering the Michigan and Florida primaries to her advantage, and then taking the fight all the way to the convention in August -- which if she gets that far, will be one of the most divisive in forty years.

I suppose I should not be surprised. If Hillary Clinton has experience in anything, it's in fighting when cornered. When Bill Clinton lost his governorship, it was Hillary Clinton who commissioned Dick Morris to advise the Clintons on a no-holds-barred campaign to retake the governor's mansion. At the start of 1995, when Newt Gingrich and company took over Congress and the Clinton administration looked in danger of becoming irrelevant, it was Hillary Clinton who installed Dick Morris in the White House, along with his sidekick Mark Penn, to "triangulate" by distancing Bill Clinton from the Democratic Party and moving the Administration rightward. (When Morris was subsequently discovered to have a penchant for the toes of prostitutes the White House dumped him but kept Penn on.) And now Mark Penn is the "chief strategist" of Hillary Clinton's campaign.

The sad news is that whether the Clinton scorched-earth strategy ultimately succeeds or fails, it will have caused great harm."

So, Hillary, please take it from one of your close friends, and get out now before more damage is done.

Dick Morris Ad for Obama

Dick Morris has a suggestion for Obama:

"The next time Hillary uses the recycled red phone ad, counter with one of your own. When the phone rings in the middle of the night, have a woman’s voice, with a flat Midwestern accent, answer it and say, “Hold on” into the receiver. Then she should shout, “Bill! It’s for you!”

Because with Hillary’s complete lack of any meaningful experience in foreign affairs, and her lack of the “testing” that she boldly claims, she’ll be yelling for Bill."

That, and it would imply Bill has another woman calling at 3am. Morris, who has as much to gain from Hillary winning as anyone, says she's done:

"The race is over.

The results are already clear. Obama will go to the Democratic Convention with a lead of between 100 and 200 elected delegates.
...
Will Hillary win Pennsylvania? Who cares? Even if she were to sweep the remaining primaries and caucuses by 10 points, she would move just 60 votes closer to Obama’s total of elected delegates. And she won’t sweep them all. Even if Hillary wins Pennsylvania, the largest prize up for grabs, Obama will probably win North Carolina, which is almost as large.

I reassert my submission that Obama go ahead and offer Hillary the #2 spot now. If she agrees, well, fine. If she does not, then you're more free to paint her as the spoiler who's out of touch, etc, etc. The people have spoken.

Green Tea Bag

Make Her an Offer....

....You know she will refuse.
President Bill has opened the door for you, Barry:

"she believes that if you can unite the energy and the new people that he's brought in and the people in these vast swaths of small town and rural America that she's carried overwhelmingly, if you had those two things together she thinks it'd be hard to beat."

He added that, in his view, Obama would win the "urban areas and the upscale voters" while Clinton claims "the traditional rural areas that we lost when President Reagan was president. If you put those two things together, you'd have an almost unstoppable force."

I submit that Obama should now publicly offer the Vice President spot to Hillary. He should say that in order to unite the party and avoid a prolonged battle, we should do as your husband President Bill suggested, and unite to make the 'unstoppable force'.

By all estimates (do the math yourself), Hillary, you cannot catch up in delegates and can only win under circumstances that would be a detriment to the party's chances in November. So, Hillary, for the good of the party and the country, please accept this offer.

After she refuses, she will appear to be (and well, actually be) the one tearing apart the party.

Thanks, President Bill!

The The for Eve C.

3D Anaglyph Rig

rig3, originally uploaded by Watts4.

I've been picking up on 3D photography. This is the rig I built to take the two master photos that I turn into a 3D anaglyph using free software. You'll need some anaglyph glasses to see some of the full, glorious results here.

There are lots of tips and tricks to the trade, and I've been scouring the web soaking up information. Here's a great source of info on 3D picture taking, including anaglyphs. Here's the free software I've been using mostly, Callipygan. (interesting side note: "Callipygan" is a Greek term meaning "Having Shapely Buttocks")

Frankly, after seeing some of these 3D pictures, normal "flattys" just seem so... well, flat. There are lots of limitations on distance, colors, background, ghosting, etc., but a great one is worth staring at for a long, long time.

If you need some 3D anaglyph glasses, shoot me a note or leave a comment and I'll send ya a pair. Thanks for looking.

Pour Water on Her Already

Rory O'Connor at Alternet explains her Ohio and Texas performances like this:

Hillary won this week by working the refs.

By constantly complaining about coverage, and relentlessly focusing on charges that the news media has favored Barack Obama and treated him far more gently than herself, Hillary was finally able to staunch the bleeding and stage a desperately needed, last minute comeback that will keep her in the game. By mocking the media, quoting Saturday Night Live, and "practically browbeating reporters," her campaign lived to fight another day.

And fight is the operative word. Going negative against the media, as well as her opponent, saved the day for the Clintons.

I've noticed this effect as well. Dan Abrams springs to mind, doing his best to 'even out' MSNBC coverage from supposed Obama cheerleaders like Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann. But the plain truth is, Chris Matthews was right when he suggested that we would not be voting for Hillary Clinton if her husband had not been president. Just sayin'...it's true.

She's also getting help from Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, so there you go...

Funniest line last night was about Obama's phone call to congratulate Hillary on Texas. Rachel Maddow proclaimed:

"I'm surprised he didn't wait until 3:oo in the morning to call her".

You know who wins my vote with that 3:00 AM ad, Hillary? John McCain. Dude....

I thought we had avoided it, but it really looks like those Florida and Michigan delegates are going to be pivotal for the convention. The North Carolina primary might even mean something this time around. With the Clintons involved, I expect this could get ugly.

To the voters of Texas and Ohio: Thanks for bringing me back to my senses. The Democratic party is as dumb as I feared.