MoveOn.org is giving away free Obama buttons. I think it looks quite nice. :)

https://political.moveon.org/obamabuttons/index.html?id=13312-9047471-_.9fWjx&t=2

So, apparently a baker from Ramallah decided to make a special "Obama" bagel to commemorate his visit to the West Bank in the Middle East.  It looks quite tasty! 

McCain, who did not visit the West Bank his last time in the Middle East, did not get one.  Bad McCain!  No bagel!

Edit:  I can't seem to get the embed thing correct because my brain is not working today, so here's the link to the video:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/25815951#25815951

Startin' your morning with a little Orange Juice :-) Hope you enjoy!

My apologies if this has already been posted; I've been out of town for a week and haven't yet attempted to catch up with the backed up entries on my flist.

My dad fwded me this e-mail asking me to "make it known to Obama's people that it's being circulated". I remember a smear prevention website being mentioned on here before but I can't remember the URL... could someone please direct me to it if this one hasn't been covered yet?

( The fwd... )

If nothing else I find it encouraging that I've finally convined my dad that not everything that comes through his inbox is true.

Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times - Senator Barack Obama in the Hall of Remembrance at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem on Wednesday

For the accompanying article, click Obama Meets Israeli and Palestinian Leaders

Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times - Senator Barack Obama in the Hall of Remembrance at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem on Wednesday

For the accompanying article, click Obama Meets Israeli and Palestinian Leaders

Bloomberg article refutes Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac bailout, suggests stock offerings or split them into 10 private companies each to absorb their own losses.

I happen to think that's a good idea. What are the downsides to letting these mortgage companies suffer the consequences of their mistakes, like good Capitalists, instead of getting bailed out by taxpayers (like me) who can't afford to own a home until the prices rebalance at a reasonable level, roughly 1/4 the current prices. If there's no bailout, credit gets expensive, right? But inflation is doing that already. Look at how much "disposable income" is now dedicated to buying food and fuel to get to work? If there's no bailout, they will end up selling those foreclosed houses for the market value, not the imaginary one, and the market value is what a collapsed mortgage industry can fund... which is nothing. So the houses will sell for cash, most likely. At a cash value, a house should raise around double what you sell a car for. I don't think many people will keep that much cash on hand to buy things with, but with bank runs already happening (IndyMac?), its just a matter of time before people take to having a home safe full of their savings. Its not like banks offer serious interest, and no investment comes close to the 18% (grandfather) inflation rate we're under now. I suppose those houses could be demolished or leased out to the govt for low income housing, but they'd degenerate fast and the neighbors would burn them down or use the courts/public-health to have them condemned and stop dragging down the neighborhood.

My take on things is this recession and the housing bust is going to make us all a lot poorer, right at the retirement age for all those Baby Boomers. With the value of their homes, their main retirement savings, tanking by 1/3 to 1/2 its value only a couple years ago, will they vote to increase their social security benefits to make up the difference to they can enjoy the lifestyle they were expecting? And how will the working class (us) react to seeing our tax rates double or triple? Will the Boomers have the sense to see that their needs (greed) which caused this mess in the first place is now in the position to harm their kids (us) and accelerate the collapse of the economy? Will the housing bust + energy depletion + Boomer retirement = Greater Depression?

I'm curious to see what those of you with a greater familiarity to the economic mess we're in have to say about this. Are we stuck in a Frying-Pan/Fire choice? Bail out the bad loans and double our taxes, while not really helping with the pressures that caused the foreclosures in the first place, and hurt our currency worldwide OR don't bail them out and see ourselves suffer a deep collapse in housing, thus retirement savings, and increase taxation just as much, while decreasing overall positives in the market and driving part of the economy underground? What do you think? Am I missing another option?

A few people I know have posted this blog, and it makes me sad.

( Obama is the Anti-Christ )

Just made the mistake of "upgrading" to the Hardy LTS and suddenly Ubuntu can't recognize my laptop's wireless card, just as if it's not there. It worked fine under Dapper and still works fine under XP...any suggestions?

It's come to my attention that there's something circulating around the internet about Barack and his "cousin Odinga" an alleged terrorist?  do you guys know if there's any truth at all to this whatsoever?

and if there is/isn't, should we alert fightthesmears.com?

There's an article at Yahoo! News about Charles T. Payne, the great-uncle of Obama's who helped liberate a concentration camp at Ohrduf, Germany in 1945. Payne is now 83 years old and living in Chicago: After the war, Payne went to college in Kansas on the GI Bill and then to graduate school at the University of Chicago, where Obama would later lecture on constitutional law. He later became interested in computers and how they could be used in libraries. He retired at age 70 as assistant director of the University of Chicago's library.

To read the article, absolutely no registration required, click Obama's great-uncle recalls liberating Nazi camp.

There's been speculation that Chuck Hagel could be a VP choice. I think that's highly unlikely. There will be a Democrat as the VP nominee. But I do think it's possible Chuck Hagel could serve in the Obama administration. I get the feeling he would be the Secretary of State as he seems to have the experience and is currently touring with Obama.

A story from my own backyard. Luckily this guy isn't my state senator...

Senator Posts Obama-Osama Picture

Picture Claims Little Difference Between Two Men

ANDERSON COUNTY, S.C. -- A South Carolina senator is fielding negative reactions after he posted a picture of Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden with a controversial comment on the state legislative Web site.

S.C. Sen. Kevin Bryant said he "wanted to make people think." But after the public reacted negatively to the image, Bryant said he will take it down.

The image shows bin Laden and Obama with the text: "the difference between Obama and Osama is just a little b.s."

Bryant said he was just trying to start a discussion and to make people think about Obama.

"I don't feel comfortable with this commitment with Israel. I don't feel comfortable with his commitment with the war on terror. And I feel like those things are worthy of discussion."

He said he didn't "compare the two."

The image with text was posted without any additional comment. When asked why he did it, Bryant said, "I think putting things on my blog to allow people to draw their own conclusions is a good thing."

WYFF took to the streets to ask people, both Democrats and Republicans, what they thought of the posting.
The comments ranged from "stupid" to "not a good idea."

Jeremy Mueller, of Anderson, said, "I'm a McCain supporter myself. I'm not going to vote for Obama. But I don't appreciate that."

Candidate for S.C. Senate Marshall Meadors said, "I think it is highly insensitive to the racial and cultural issues that we as a country -- we as a state -- have been trying so hard to overcome for the last several generations. I think it is a degree of ignorance as to what the important issues are."

Bryant said that he is going to remove the picture from the Web site, but he said that he still stands by his decision to post it in the first place.

Original story here: http://www.wyff4.com/politics/16958573/detail.html