Interesting perspective on Ayers and the Weather Underground by one of their intended victims.

Normally I wouldn't spend my time searching online for vintage "Ramar of the Jungle" episodes. But when I read (via Ann Althouse's link) about the African adventures of Amanda Marcotte, and after seeing pictures like these stirred up my superstitious imagination (if not my primitive jungle urges), I decided to go the extra mile.

The cover is pretty tame:

But the inside pictures are juicier. Check 'em out!

Amanda has been so nice to me in the past that after seeing the extensive discussion about the book, there was just no way I could sit idly by.

So, in honor of the blogosphere's leading jungle woman, I hereby present a very fitting Ramar of the Jungle episode -- "Mark of the Bola" (1952):

....featuring Jon Hall as Dr. Tom Reynolds - a.k.a. "the great white "ramar" - and his associate, Howard Ogden, and Willie. Ramar and crew have great adventures in the jungle - fighting for truth, justice and the American way - in the heart of Africa.

"the mere fact that a woman survived a calamity that struck down three strong men would arouse the superstition of any primitive mind."

Why, it's almost socially redeeming! See for yourself!

LikeTelevision Embed Movies and TV Shows

(If the above won't stream, the link is here.)

And be sure not to miss the famous Noxzema comfort shave commercial at the end. If you get tired of Ramar, it's separately clickable.

(Take it off! Take it all off!)

It's not every day that I open the Philadelphia Inquirer to an editorial page debate between Andrew Sullivan and a leftie activist. And when on top of that the topic involves collective responsibility, it's the sort of thing I cannot not write a blog post about.

Sullivan and Clarence B. Jones ("former draft speechwriter for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and currently a scholar in residence/visiting professor at the Martin Luther King Jr. Research & Education Institute at Stanford University") are on opposite sides on the merits of Jeremiah Wright's denunciations of white America.

Sullivan's Op-Ed consists of excerpts from his blog posts, including some of what I quoted the other day (that Wright's performance was "a calculated, ugly, repulsive, vile display of arrogance, egotism and self-regard") as well as more:

Wright himself, it seems to me, has become part of what Obama is fighting against: the boomer obsessions with red/blue, white/black, pro-/anti-Americanism. Those need not dominate this election, and Wright's racially divisive and, yes, bitter provocation requires a proportionate response.

This is no longer about cynics trying to associate one man's politics with another's. It is now about Wright attempting to associate himself and some of his noxious views with the likely Democratic nominee. He has given Obama no choice - but he has given him an opportunity. Yesterday, Obama went a long way toward seizing it. But making that repudiation stick will take more work.

Like the Jeremiah Wright he defends, Clarence B. Jones would disagree with me, as he thinks that "white America" (meaning all white people living in America, down to the most recent arrivals from Eastern Europe) is collectively responsible for the bad things which other white people have done. Jones begins by citing with approval a quote from James Baldwin:

A vast amount of energy that goes into what we call the Negro problem is produced by the white man's profound desire not to be judged by those who are not white, not to be seen as he is, and at the same time, a vast amount of the white anguish is rooted in the white man's equally profound need to be seen as he is, to be released from the tyranny of his mirror.

Next comes Cornel West:

Cornel West writes that in this essay, Baldwin "spoke the deep truth that democratic individuality demands that white Americans give up their deliberate ignorance and willful blindness about the weight of white supremacy in America. Only then can a genuine democratic community emerge in America."

What does "democratic individuality" mean? It sounds like the type of indefinable code language used by people who want to win arguments without really having to say what they think. Like the left-wing communitarian term "social justice," which, although indefinable, clearly implies that the legal system should be involved in things like property redistribution and "human rights commissions."

I don't like it when people juxtapose unrelated concepts together and then repeat them until they sound like truisms. ("Structural violence." "Poverty is violence." "Pornography is violence." And of course "Jobs Not Guns!")

And if there is such a thing as "democratic individuality," then what stands in opposition to it? "Undemocratic individuality"? Does that mean the undemocratic individual should not be allowed to vote? (Or is it just code language for Republicans?)

Anyway, whatever "democratic individuality" is, I find it a bit insulting to read that "it" demands that "white Americans" (including, I guess, my white-ass self)give up "their" (meaning my) "deliberate ignorance" and "willful blindness" about the "weight" of "white supremacy in America."

How many mouthfuls (or mouthsful) of this do I need in one morning? Do I have to spend all day? If I am to be scolded for being ignorant, don't I get to hear what I'm ignorant about? I've studied American history in detail, and I think I'm at least as aware of slavery, racism, the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Klan, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights movement as most college graduates -- maybe more. I continue to read and I try to keep an open mind about these and other things. So what am I ignorant and willfully blind about? The weight of white supremacy? How can he be so sure that I'm ignorant and blind about that because I am white?

Or am I only ignorant and blind if I disagree over how the "weight"? Whose scale is to be used in its measurement, and who decides?

Jones argues that the reactions to Wright result from the "24/7 persistence of white racism":

Everyone seems quick to blame or condemn Wright for the possible impact or "political" consequences of his remarks on Obama's candidacy. My view is that whatever those consequences may be, they are fundamentally a result of the pernicious 24/7 persistence of white racism. Most white people (and, perhaps, some African Americans) are uncomfortable with a public discourse about or a reminder of this reality.

At the risk of sounding like a hopelessly ignorant cracker, let me just venture that people who disagree are not the ones with an aversion to discourse. Those who are uncomfortable with discourse are the ones who simply do not engage in discourse. As to why these silent hordes might be uncomfortable, I don't know. I can't speak for them. Maybe some of them just hate politics and political arguments. It seems like a major stretch to claim that they are all driven by 24/7 racism, but then, Jones is not so much attributing racism to the silent; he's attributing it to those who disagree with Wright.

To Jones, Wright is not the real issue. It's race:

Democratic primary voters have to decide whether Obama can address their concerns with high gas prices, rising foreclosures, absence of affordable health insurance, and the Iraq war. But the underlying issue, uncomfortably presented by Wright, is the reality of race relations in America.

That issue is the 800-pound gorilla in our national living room, which most politicians have been unwilling or too afraid to acknowledge or discuss.

The reactions of the media and political pundits to Wright's remarks are unambiguous reminders that white America remains seriously afflicted with amnesia with respect to its treatment of African Americans throughout most of our history.

Jones' argument is more illogical than guilt by association. It's collective guilt.

Guilt by birth. Guilt by skin color. Guilt imputed over generations. White America is collectively guilty, which means every white person is guilty. I am not merely responsible for the crimes of my ancestors; I am responsible for the crimes of other people's ancestors. (Unless, of course, I could show that I had been born with a black father, mother or other black ancestor; if so then the hereditary guilt of my white mother or father would be erased.)

This goes beyond guilt by DNA (although it may cross over to an emerging new area called "cultural DNA.")

It is deeply illogical, but to disagree with it is to be against dialogue, and to be in denial. More specifically, to be a state of "deliberate ignorance," "willful blindness" and collective amnesia. And, of course, to be motivated by a "profound desire not to be judged."

I don't want to dimiss Jones's argument out of hand, though. The reason I wrote this post is that I think that maybe the country could use some dialogue on the notion of collective guilt.

For what it's worth, I disagree profoundly with the idea of collective guilt, and I have condemned it in forgotten post after forgotten post after forgotten post. (No, it's not necessarily about race, nor is the idea limited to the left.)

Bear in mind that those forgotten blog posts do not represent any attempt at discourse or dialogue. Rather, they reflect the deliberate ignorance and willful blindness of my amnesia, and spring from my stubbornly profound desire not to be judged.

Which is a long way of saying that they simply reflect my whiteness.

UPDATE: My profound thanks to Glenn Reynolds for linking this post, and a warm welcome to all.

I appreciate the comments.

Nanocomp Technologies has announced a breakthrough in carbon nanotube production. They can make fibers in the 1 mm length range. This makes possible carbon nanotube cloth. Carbon nanotubes have wonderful properties. Very high strength. Light weight. Good electrical and thermal conductivity.

However, up to now, competitive commercial manufacturing processes have generally produced only short carbon nanotubes - usually tens of microns long - with current carbon nanotubes generally available in powder formats. And, as with most powders, they can be quite difficult to incorporate into final manufactured goods. Perhaps most importantly, final products made from traditional powdery nanotubes have poor bulk properties - exhibiting less than optimal strength and conductivity.

NCTI's patent pending processes change the game. We have developed methods to continuously produce very long, pure, carbon nanotubes, in the millimeter range of length, at high growth rates. Longer nanotubes mean greater strength, higher conductivity, easier handling, and greater product safety. They are key to providing the attractive properties exhibited by individual tubes.

* High Strength - our spun conductive yarns exhibit breaking strengths up to 3 GPa expressed or in other terms: 1.5 Nt/Tex or 450,000 psi and with fracture toughness that is higher than aramids (such as Kevlar® or Twaron® ). Our CNT sheets have breaking strengths, without binders, that range from 500 MPa to 1.2 GPa depending upon tube orientation. Aluminum breaks at 500 MPa, carbon steel breaks around 1 GPa.

* Electrical Conductivity - Capable of carrying more current than copper and are also more conductive than copper at high frequencies.

* Thermal Conductivity - Capability to transfer more heat than copper or silver on a per weight basis.

* Extremely Lightweight - Less than half the weight of aluminum

Cross Posted at Power and Control

In what probably won't shock most seasoned political junkies, it appears very possible that Jeremiah Wright's troublemaking conference yesterday at the National Press Club was set up by a Clinton supporter:

Shortly before he rose to deliver his rambling, angry, sarcastic remarks at the National Press Club Monday, Wright sat next to, and chatted with, Barbara Reynolds.

A former editorial board member at USA Today, she runs something called Reynolds News Services and teaches ministry at the Howard University School of Divinity. (She is an ordained minister).

It also turns out that Reynolds - introduced Monday as a member of the National Press Club "who organized" the event - is an enthusiastic Hillary Clinton supporter.

On a blog linked to her Web site- www.reynoldsnews.com- Reynolds said in a February post: "My vote for Hillary in the Maryland primary was my way of saying thank you" to Clinton and her husband for the successes of Bill Clinton's presidency.

The same post criticized Obama's "Audacity of Hope" theme....

There's more, including some devastating criticism of Pastor Wright.

Hmmm.... Maybe I should rethink what I said yesterday about Wright being on his best behavior.

While I'm in conspiracy mode, does anyone know for sure that this Jeremiah Wright is really a 100% Obama supporter, and that he always has been?

What about this?

It was widely linked, but quickly forgotten. Might there be more going on there than is commonly suspected? (Who or what is Bubba pointing at?)

If I really got into full-blown conspiracy mode, I might start wondering whether the entire Wright-Obama pageant wasn't orchestrated in advance to make Hillary look like the most centrist Democrat in history.

And hell I might as well push my full-blown conspiracy mode into overdrive, and ask another hellish question.

Why is Glenn Reynolds going out of his way to deny that he is related to Barbara Reynolds?

MORE: The plot deepens. Glenn Reynolds has all but admitted that the photo is true, which ought to stop all speculation in the comments about authenticity. (Of the photo; not the turkey; I see there's already been speculation over whether it's plastic.)

This narrows my area of inquiry to what did he know, and when did he know it?

Welcome all!

Unkulunkulu?

That name leaped out at me as I read John Derbyshire's Pajamas Media piece about atheism and science. Discussing some fascinating correspondence with author David Berlinski, he takes issue with what he calls Berlinski's "vague notion that atheism is a sort of religion -- "a doctrine," you say -- that people sign on to, perhaps after undergoing some formal instruction from a properly ordained minister."

Possibly it does take that form in some individuals, but far more often it is merely an indifference to supernatural explanations, on the part of people who find natural explanations sufficiently interesting. As one of those atheistical book authors says -- Hitchens, I think it is -- an atheist just believes in one fewer god than you. He is an atheist in respect of Yahweh in just the same way, and for just the same kind of reason, that you are an atheist in respect of Unkulunkulu.

What is your problem with Unkulunkulu, David? Why are you not willing to accept his mighty power? Are you secretly, in your inner heart, one of those arrogant atheists? Well, of course, so far as Unkulunkulu is concerned, you are!

I must confess, though, that I never believed in Unkulunkulu:

Unkulunkulu is the creator god and great ancestral spirit of the Zulu people. Unkulunkulu is believed to have grown on a reed in the mythical swamp of Uhlanga. In the isiZulu language, the name means "the very great/high one". According to tribal myths, he took the form of half-man / half-tiger having a human torso and lower body, but with a lion-like face and claws. It is said that he came down from the sky to fight an Evil Demon in South Africa and won against the Demon on a No Moon Day.

The most commonly accepted deity in the American cultural tradition is of course the great, apparently bearded deity described here:

It is probable that Yahweh was at one time worshiped by various tribes south of Palestine, and that several places in that wide territory (Horeb, Sinai, Kadesh, &c.) were sacred to him. The oldest and most famous of these, the mountain of God, seems to have lain in Arabia, east of the Red Sea. From some of these peoples and at one of these holy places, a group of Israelite tribes adopted the religion of Yahweh, the God who, by the hand of Moses, had delivered them from Egypt.[49]

[...]

Scholars in the 19th century discussed over what sphere of nature Yahweh originally presided. Some recognized in him a storm god, a theory with which the derivation of the name from Hebrew hawah or Arabic hawa well accords (see also the Book of Job chapters 37-38). The association of Yahweh with storm and fire is frequent in the Old Testament. The thunder is the voice of Yahweh, the lightning his arrows, and the rainbow his bow. The revelation at Sinai is amid the awe-inspiring phenomena of tempest. Yahweh leads Israel through the desert in a pillar of cloud and fire. He kindles Elijah's altar by lightning, and translates the prophet in a chariot of fire. See also Judg. v. 4 seq.. In this way, he seems to have usurped the attributes of the Canaanite god Baal Hadad. In Ugarit, the struggle between Baal and Yam, suggests that Baal's brother Ya'a was a water divinity - the god of Rivers (Nahar) and of the Sea (Yam).

Then, of course, there's Allah, said to be the Moon God. I'll upload his picture -- not because I think it's accurate, but just to demonstrate that I still live in a free country where graven images are not prohibited.

(Like I should care whether Allah -- or any other High Deity -- had origins with the Moon God.)

This all touches on my ongoing problem, which is that I see no contradiction between monotheism and polytheism. That's because I have no problem with polytheism, as I think that once you presuppose a deity, then there's no reason why there would have to be only one. God could do anything he wants, including reproduce. If God saw fit to make man, angels, a son, a devil, then what's the problem?

While polytheism is not necessarily at war with monotheism (because of the possibility of different manifestations of the god-spirit-deity to many people in many times and places) I have long seen monotheism as more at war with polytheism than the other way around, because it insists upon a limitation on the dimensionality of spiritual forces -- usually according to the demands of a particular deity.

Nothing new there, except that Derbyshire has now forced me to entertain what might be considered a provocative if not mean thought.

Are monotheists more atheistic than polytheists?

According to simple math, they may well be, because they disbelieve in more, and believe in fewer.

It's scary, because I've been called an atheist for not being a monotheist. It never occurred to me that the accusers were more atheistic than I.

Derbyshire is a bad influence.

Read it all.

House of Representatives
The Senate
The President

This shit (and if you watch the whole video that is no exaggeration) needs to get fixed at once. Total Bravo Sierra.

H/T Instapundit

Reading Harvey C. Mansfield's review of Donna Freitas's "Sex and the Soul", I was struck by the foolishness of young people who (assuming Freitas is right) make the most personal sexual decisions according to a herd mentality.

...college students today enter a low hook-up culture when they leave the classroom. In case you don't know, a hook-up is a brief sexual encounter between two partners who don't necessarily know each other before and who don't necessarily want to know each other after. And it's free. The sort of transient sex that once was available to men only for money can now be had, without paying, from college women - as long as the man is a fellow student and minimally artful about his approach. If he is thwarted in one overture, he may try another with a reasonable prospect of success.

No doubt lurid anecdote and popular myth cause us to exaggerate the actual frequency of campus hook-ups: Most college students do not share in these delights. But most students also believe that "everyone does it," even if the individual student, for some reason, cannot locate a partner. Thus an active minority sets the tone and makes hooking up a "culture." When there are no sexual boundaries, either official or informal, the standard becomes the extreme, and all students feel the pressure to appear more promiscuous than they are. The traditional double standard of sexual conduct - more restrictive for women than for men - has been replaced by the single standard of the predatory male.

So my first reaction was to decry the apparent lack of individualism in the students as portrayed in the Freitas book. If they're that way about sex, little wonder they accept uncritically the postmodernist nonsense spouted by leftist professors.

It was downright depressing. Anyway, I kept reading, hoping that someone, somewhere (either on the campus, in the book, or in the review) would remember that the right to do something includes the right to not do it, and that the right to say yes of necessity includes the right to say no. Contrary to what some believe, freedom is license. But license is a different issue than judgment and responsibility, and these things vary from individual to individual.

Since when is the right to do something stupid a duty to do something stupid?

Anyway, I found little talk of encouraging individuality. I did, however, find some advocacy of replacing peer pressure with peer pressure:

Ms. Freitas does not celebrate this state of affairs, but neither does she spend most of her prose denouncing it. Instead she wants to understand how the hook-up culture functions and what forces might be at odds with it. Rather than confine her interviews to secular colleges, she visits religious ones, both Catholic and evangelical. The Catholic colleges, she finds, are little different from their secular counterparts; they seem "more adept at creating lapsed Catholics than anything else."

But evangelical colleges make an effort to oppose the hook-up culture with a "purity culture," asking a level of sexual restraint that would seem, for most young people today, all but impossible. One is inclined to admire the students who attempt to meet the purity culture's strict demands. But it is clear that such students often suffer deep anxiety in their search for a mate. The boys find it troublingly difficult to put off sex, and the girls are fearful that they will have failed in college if they do not get a "ring by spring" (of their senior year). While students in the hook-up culture appear more promiscuous than they are, purity students appear more virtuous than they are.

Or is it that these kids are merely lying about their sex lives or lack thereof? Are virgins claiming to be studs and sluts, while sluts and studs are claiming to be chaste? So they can fit in with their respective peer pressure groups?

I don't know, but college sounds like an awful place.

I'm glad I don't have kids, because I wouldn't want to have to pay money for indoctrinating my kids on how to be followers.

We hear a lot about "choice," and we tend to think of it as an individual thing. At least, I've always thought of it that way. I'd hate to think that choice is being redefined as a choice of herds.

The promiscuous herd? Or the purity herd?

Another question which occurred to me is why religion keeps getting juxtaposed against promiscuous sex, as if it's one or the other, and the purpose of the former is to combat the latter. (Is the implication that atheists are sluts, while Christians are pure? Why?)

I'd almost swear this begins to resemble identity politics. (Which is "choice" masquerading as the antithesis of choice.)

UPDATE: My thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link, especially for quoting from this post, and a warm welcome to all!

Comments invited -- agree or disagree.

Dennis The Peasant has a wonderful post up about the difficulties of being an uber feminist in an age of Political Correctness. It all revolves around Amanda Marcotte and some very delightful if politically incorrect illustrations.

H/T Insty

Cross Posted at Power and Control

On the radio yesterday, I heard Rush Limbaugh bragging that thanks to him (and what he called "Operation Chaos," but which I call "Operation Elect Hillary"), Hillary Clinton is now ahead.

When I distrust someone, I tend to be dismissive of whatever that person says.

Bad logical move. (Even liars sometimes tell the truth.)

Anyway, today I see news confirmation that things are going according to chaos plan:

WASHINGTON - Hillary Rodham Clinton now leads John McCain by 9 points in a head-to-head presidential matchup, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll that bolsters her argument that she is more electable than Democratic rival Barack Obama. Obama and Republican McCain are running about even.

The survey released Monday gives the New York senator and former first lady a fresh talking point as she works to raise much-needed campaign cash and persuade pivotal undecided superdelegates to side with her in the drawn-out Democratic primary fight.

Helped by independents, young people and seniors, Clinton gained ground this month in a hypothetical match with Sen. McCain, the GOP nominee-in-waiting. She now leads McCain, 50 percent to 41 percent, while Obama remains virtually tied with McCain, 46 percent to 44 percent.

Both Democrats were roughly even with McCain in the previous poll about three weeks ago.

The AP-Ipsos poll found Clinton and Obama about even in the race for the Democratic nomination. Underscoring deep divisions within the Democratic Party -- and a potentially negative longer-term impact -- 30 percent of Clinton supporters and 21 percent of Obama supporters said they would vote for McCain in November if their preferred candidate didn't win the nomination.

But then there's this interesting statement, which indicates to me that at least some people in the GOP leadership are beginning to think logically:

Also on Monday, the head of the Republicans' House campaign committee said the party would rather face Obama in November because the GOP believes Clinton would be more of a threat to McCain among moderate voters.

Said Tom Cole, a congressman from Oklahoma: Obama "is by any definition very liberal, to the left of Hillary Clinton, in a center-right country. That is very, very helpful to us."

This strategy actually predates Ann Coulter's pledge to vote for Hillary. It was Tom DeLay who actually pioneered the meme, when, back in February of 2007, he stated that the Republicans needed Hillary:

Hillary Clinton as president may be the best thing that ever happened to the conservative movement and the Republican Party.

In a post a couple of weeks ago, I linked a warning that was going around along the lines of "Be careful what you wish for, Rush."

I think they've been quite careful.

If the Neo-RINOs win and Hillary is president, what are the Paleo-RINOs to do?

(I've been predicting this sort of treachery for so long that words fail me. Honestly, I don't know what to title this post. The three letter title I started out with is beginning to look like understatement, but I'll leave it the way it is in the interest of politeness...)

UPDATE: My thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link, and for quoting from this post!

A warm welcome to all. Comments always invited -- agree or disagree.

Today I learned that there's no escape from Pastor Jeremiah Wright.

I didn't watch his live appearance before the National Press Club on C-SPAN, nor did I check my email until after he spoke. But since Pajamas Media had been nice enough to ask me to cover the event, when I finally saw their email I emailed back and said I'd try to watch it on video anyway, even though it would probably be too late for a piece.

Was I ever in for a grotesque afternoon! I found the 6 part video on YouTube and rarely have I been more disgusted with a speech by any public figure. To call this guy a demagogue is an understatement. Really, I found it hard to sit through, but I did.

Finally, it dawned on me that if I couldn't stand to watch a single speech by this master of malevolence, how could Obama have sat through 20 years of it?

So even though it was late, I wrote my post for Pajamas Media, and I hope you enjoy it.

My thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the linking the piece in his roundup. After I wrote the PJM piece, I learned that a number of commentators are now wondering whether Wright might be sabotaging Obama. Glenn asks whether " the whole thing [is] being cleverly staged" to give Obama a Sister Souljah moment. (Plus, it might mean that Bill Moyer wasted his time over the weekend!)

Even Andrew Sullivan (long a Wright defender) has had it, saying this makes "any further defense of him impossible.":

This was a calculated, ugly, repulsive, vile display of arrogance, egotism, and self-regard. This is an outright attack on the stated beliefs and policies and values of Barack Obama in a secular setting.

All in all, not a good day for Obama.

Wright does seem to be going out of his way to create problems.

I'd almost think he was being paid, except I know there's no corruption in Chicago.

Who is the Devil? That would be me. Who says so? That would be Obama's Spiritual Mentor, the person who coined the phrase Obama used as the title of one of his books The Audacity of Hope, the irreverend Jeremiah Wright.

"Theologically, Malcolm X was not far wrong when he called the white man 'the devil.' The white structure of this American society, personified in every racist, must be at least part of what the New Testament meant by demonic forces... "

Yes, Wright's views certainly contradict Obama's stated beliefs, policies, and values.

My take on all this? The irreverend Wright is trying to help his close friend Barack Hussein Obama get elected.

Update: 29 April 008 0335z

The Telegraph Co. UK. has a few words:

Barack Obama's former pastor returned to plague his White House bid yesterday with a nationally televised speech in which he blamed US policy for the September 11 attacks and praised the controversial black leader Louis Farrakhan.

David Axelrod, Mr Obama's chief strategist, admitted to the cable news channel MSNBC that the campaign had no control over the minister. "Obviously we would not have encouraged him to go on a media tour," he said.

Joe Watkins, a Republican strategist and pastor, who is black, said: "This hurts Obama tremendously because all it's doing is causing people to remember that Barack Obama has been a member of this man's church."

If you qualify Purchasing Magazine is free. If you don't qualify there is still their www site.

What is Gnip Gnop? Ping pong spelled backwards. Officially Table Tennis. And what is so important about that? Let me see if I can narrow it down some. It is about state government. Illinois State Government. It is about FOO. FOO? That would be Friends of Obama (D, Rezko). Also FODu and FODa. That would be Friends of Dick Durbin (D, Corruption [State]) and Friends of Richard Daley (D, Corruption [City]). Like all tales of money in Illinois it has some interesting twists and turns. The LA Times tells the story.

WASHINGTON -- After an unsuccessful campaign for Congress in 2000, Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama faced serious financial pressure: numerous debts, limited cash and a law practice he had neglected for a year. Help arrived in early 2001 from a significant new legal client -- a longtime political supporter.

Chicago entrepreneur Robert Blackwell Jr. paid Obama an $8,000-a-month retainer to give legal advice to his growing technology firm, Electronic Knowledge Interchange. It allowed Obama to supplement his $58,000 part-time state Senate salary for over a year with regular payments from Blackwell's firm that eventually totaled $112,000.

A few months after receiving his final payment from EKI, Obama sent a request on state Senate letterhead urging Illinois officials to provide a $50,000 tourism promotion grant to another Blackwell company, Killerspin.

Killerspin specializes in table tennis, running tournaments nationwide and selling its own line of equipment and apparel and DVD recordings of the competitions. With support from Obama, other state officials and an Obama aide who went to work part time for Killerspin, the company eventually obtained $320,000 in state grants between 2002 and 2004 to subsidize its tournaments.

Obama's staff said the senator advocated only for the first year's grant -- which ended up being $20,000, not $50,000. The day after Obama wrote his letter urging the awarding of the state funds, Obama's U.S. Senate campaign received a $1,000 donation from Blackwell.

Obama's presidential campaign rejects any suggestion that there was a connection between the legal work, the campaign contribution and the help with the grant. "Any implication that Sen. Obama would risk an ethical breach in order to secure a small grant for a pingpong tournament is nuts," said David Axelrod, Obama's chief political advisor.

Business relationships between lawmakers and people with government interests are not illegal or uncommon in Illinois or other states with a part-time Legislature, where lawmakers supplement their state salaries with income from the private sector.

But Obama portrays himself as a lawmaker dedicated to transparency and sensitive to even the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Recently, Obama expressed regret over a property deal with Illinois power broker Tony Rezko after Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004. In an interview this spring with the Chicago Sun-Times, Obama said his regret was not just because the real estate and restaurant entrepreneur was under criminal scrutiny, but because he was "a contributor and someone doing business before the state."

Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs, who provided The Times with details of Obama's compensation from EKI, said Obama did nothing wrong acting on behalf of Killerspin. He said the state senator simply wrote a letter backing a worthy project developed by a constituent.

Killerspin's owner, Blackwell, was a political supporter and friend as well. Both men lived on Chicago's South Side. Blackwell, a savvy and successful entrepreneur, was one of the first donors to Obama's early campaigns, including the state senator's failed bid for a congressional seat in 2000. In the presidential race he is credited on Obama's website with committing to raise $100,000 to $200,000 for Obama's campaign.

When Blackwell sought backing for his table tennis tournament in 2002, other politicians, including U.S. Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, offered support for the event. But Obama was the only one who provided a letter that became part of the initial application for state funds, state records show. In addition, he wrote a state Senate proclamation heralding the first tournament and an official letter that welcomed "table tennis friends" to the 2004 contest and thanked spectators for helping to "make Chicago the table tennis capital of this nation."

One thing you can say about Obama relative to Illinois politics. He is an honest politician. He stays bought.

So it all comes down to: who owns him. And you thought slavery was outlawed by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. Obviously it does not apply to politicians. Obama is a Slave to the Machine. The Chicago Machine. It is a tough job, but Obama Can Do It.

Which brings us to speculation. Why was Obama pushed forward so hard in this election season? My guess is that it was the Chicago Machine's last hope to limit the damage from the Rezko mess. If Obama wins the Presidency he can slow or stop further investigations into how Illinois/Chicago operates. With Obama tanking it has got to be putting those guys into the house of fear. You can smell it in the air.

Cross Posted at Power and Control

In more posts than I can count, I've complained about the mandatory spay and neuter movement, which is built around the idea that whether your dog has testicles is the government's business.

Well now, via TigerHawk, I see that the busybody bureaucrats who can't stand balls on animals have ratcheted up their campaign, and they want to criminalize truck testicles! No, really:

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - Senate lawmakers in Florida have voted to ban the fake bull testicles that dangle from the trailer hitches of many trucks and cars throughout the state.

Republican Sen. Cary Baker, a gun shop owner from Eustis, Florida, called the adornments offensive and proposed the ban. Motorists would be fined $60 for displaying the novelty items, which are known by brand names like "Truck Nutz" and resemble the south end of a bull moving north.

I arbitrarily selected the blue balls, and I do not want any insinuations made, OK?

They come in colors, of course, and there are red and white ones to go with the blue ones, as well as green ones which would look great hanging from priapic Priuses.

What worried me the most was to see that the truck neutering ordinance was sponsored by a Republican. Might that mean that the war on sex (recently gathering steam among gay crackpots) is about to hook up with the animal neutering movement?

I hope not. (Otherwise, I might have to alter my earlier view that "Gonad Nazis" might be too strong a term for these nut-grabbers.)

In any case, I think that under established constitutional law principles, this law must fail. Not only because there's still a right to freedom of expression, but because there is a less restrictive alternative.

An ordinary vasectomy.

You know, a stitch in time?

Many, many people have dumped on John McCain for betraying North Carolina Republicans by trying to stop the now-famous political ad (which skewers Obama for the Wright and Weather Underground relationships, and concludes that Obama is "too extreme for North Carolina").

Maybe Obama is too extreme for North Carolinians, but I'm wondering about McCain's motivation for opposing the ad.

He certainly irritated the conservative Republican base in North Carolina, as well as a lot of other people. And he is being seen as opposing the truth:

Predictably, however, Obama's cheerleaders in the mainstream media, the left side of the Blogosphere and political fellow travelers in the Democratic party immediately began blasting the North Carolina ad. Typical was Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean who called the ad "racially divisive" and challenged presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain to pass this "test of leadership" by forcing the state party to stop airing the ad (which by the way has been viewed more than 200,000 times on YouTube at last count). Amazingly, McCain quickly joined this condescending chorus, demanding that the ad be pulled as "inappropriate" and "offensive to some." During a Friday conference call with bloggers, McCain added that the ad "is not the tenor of the campaign we want to wage." And he said the North Carolina GOP is "out of touch with reality." A McCain campaign spokesman was unable to say what part of the ad conveyed the objectionable tenor.

Unable to say?

Why might that be?

Unless the primary is over, McCain is not yet running against Barack Obama. Is it possible that what the McCain campaign found objectionable was that the ad might cause North Carolinians to vote for Hillary Clinton?

Suppose for the sake of argument that McCain would rather run against Obama. (I've been arguing ad nauseam that Obama would be easier for him to beat.) Imagine then (hypothetically) that McCain came out out and said that he'd rather run against Obama than Hillary, and that he hoped Democrats would vote for Obama. It would become a huge campaign issue, and Hillary's campaign would seize on it so fast it would make your head spin. So, if McCain thought that, he could never have said it; likewise, if he opposes running anti-Obama ads, he has to advance boilerplate claims that the ads are inappropriate or offensive.

This might explain why his campaign is "unable to say" why.

In any case, I think it was a mistake for McCain to attack the ad. He should have just kept his mouth shut, and I agree with M. Simon and Glenn Reynolds that attacking the ad only helped publicize it.

Obviously, I don't know whether McCain wants Obama to beat Hillary, and this is only speculation. I also don't know whether his reasons for opposing the North Carolina ad matter.

Frankly, I feel a bit conflicted posting about this, because I want McCain to win in November, and I'm not sure it's especially helpful to his campaign to speculate about a possible hidden agenda. I'm also well aware of the possibility that the more I claim Hillary has a better chance to beat McCain than Obama, the more I'm helping Hillary.

What this means is that I may be a conflict of interest. I want to say what I think, yet I don't want to say things that might be harmful to McCain's candidacy.

Having disclosed that, I should probably relax, and just say what I think, lest I find myself in the McCain camp's "unable to say" position.

Because things are sure to get worse before they get better.

In a post titled "America's Worst Mom?" Dr. Helen questions whether New York Sun columnist Lenore Skenazy (who let her son take the subway home alone) is in fact the worst mother in the country, as many Newsweek readers contend. Said Skenazy,

"...Half the people I've told this episode to now want to turn me in for child abuse. As if keeping kids under lock and key and helmet and cell phone and nanny and surveillance is the right way to rear kids. It's not. It's debilitating--for us and for them."

When I was in graduate school in New York in the 80's, it was a far more dangerous place. I saw kids ride the subway all the time. No one seemed to care. Now that it's safer, no one thinks kids should come out of their homes.

Sticking the title "America's Worst Mom" on this particular mother, Lenore Skenazy, is rather ridiculous and alarmist given the things really bad mothers actually do to their children. The term should be reserved for people who deserve it.

As it happens, I have written a number of posts about the rash of subway and public transportation crime in Philadelphia. Most of the subway crime is caused by public school students, and I suspect the same would be true in most urban areas with subways.

But what is happening is that students are spilling out from schools (where they assault each other, and don't really receive attention until they do things like break the necks and jaws of their teachers) and into the stations, where they interact with the general public.

The "general public" includes many people who do not experience violence on a daily basis, but who instead imagine that they and their children can live in peace and harmony and in a nonviolent world. (Some probably adhere to the gentle John Lennon "Imagine" philosophy.)

This entire discussion simply begs the question of whether public schools aren't more dangerous than subways. In many urban areas, they clearly are, and it is just a given. The thing is, the kids who go to those schools, cause merchants to lock their doors as they spill onto the streets at 3:00 p.m. (an hour dreaded by the Philadelphia Police Department), are just as free to ride the subways as the children of the "lock and key, helmet/cell-phone/nanny-surveillance" moms.

But they are not living in the same culture, and I suspect that Ms. Skenazy's accusers are not only members of the latter group, but they perceive her to be either one of them, or someone who should be one of them. (Like affluent Berkeleyans who excoriate affluent moms for having too many kids, but think it's just peachy for the "oppressed" classes to do so. "Oppressed" is PC jargon for "non white lower class" of course.)

Our "society" (if I may use that word) is being overwhelmed by such hopeless and intractable double standards.

This touches on another double standard. Assaults on subways are treated as crimes, and the perps will be arrested if found. Contrast this with assaults in schools, which teachers try to ignore or sweep under the rug as best they can:

"Violence takes place on a day to day basis but it is rarely reported, because if you're a professional in the school district and you admit to any negative circumstance like a physical threat, you may lose your job."

(While this is a different topic, there is also a rather large double standard where it comes to crimes committed against children by children, which makes no sense legally, and which I have posted about before. I fail to understand why punching an adult in the face is so much more serious than punching a child in the face, but I'm probably elevating logic above the social reality that school children are supposed to tolerate what no adult would have to.)

Only some people live in a "lock and key, helmet/cell-phone/nanny-surveillance" world in which it is child abuse to let children ride subways. They are so out of touch that it doesn't even occur to them that they are proponents of a huge double standard -- which raises a glaringly obvious question:

If it is child abuse to put a child on an urban subway, then why isn't it child abuse to send a child to an urban public school?

The answer is determined not by reference to the legal system, or by reference to any fixed or ascertainable moral standard.

It is determined by class.

Don Surber has a nice bit on how Obama is self destructing. Or is it self deconstructing. Well what ever Obama is doing to himself there are a lot of twists and turns. Lots of them. Lots and lots of them.

He's looking less like Kennedy, and more like Steve Urkel.

In the 1980s, a smart, talented, hard-working, young intellectual came to Chicago and skyrocketed to success.

But enough about Steve Urkel. This is a political blog and so I must discuss again Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois.

Or rather his lapel pin, which has become like Donovan's mountain. First there is a lapel pin, then there is no lapel pin, then there is.

He put on a patriotic lapel pin shortly after 9/11 to show his patriotism.

He stopped wearing one when opinion swung away from the war in Iraq.

He started wearing it again after word spread that he told the radical chic in San Francisco that rural Pennsylvanians won't vote for him because they fear outsiders as they cling to their guns and their religion.

Finally, there is proof that Obama is his own man. He does not need the help of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright to make himself out as an out-of-touch, far-left radical.

H/T The Pundit of Knoxville

Cross Posted at Power and Control

A comment to M. Simon's earlier post (about the video linked by Glenn earlier) made me search for the original, because I'm too "vane" to need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows....

And no, I don't follow leaders, I watch the parking meters!

(But that's Allen Ginsburg in the background so Look out kid...)

Which reminded me of a photo I took yesterday.....

Yeah, I know her eyes are gone. Had to remove them to protect the poor stranger's privacy.

But the school aspect reminded me of another photo I decided it was safe to leave the eyes in. Scales and all.

Scales fall from eyes, of course then fish from ice to scales!

And from the metal to the petals (which fall too).

This saint who was standing nearby has probably seen many cycles of petal to metal.

If you don't want to listen, just watch it spin...

It'll work!

ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....................

In a PJM piece titled "Where Have All the Smart Media Moguls Gone?" Burt Prelutsky asks a couple of good questions about the news media:

....if you are a conservative and every time you pick up your daily newspaper, you find that everything you believe, not to mention all the things you hold dear, are being ridiculed not only on the editorial page, but throughout the entire paper, it shouldn't surprise anyone that the day finally dawns when a lot of them are going to say, "Why am I paying for this bilge?"

The question that comes to mind is why a business - any business - would go out of its way to antagonize, depending on the city, between, say, 40 and 60% of its market. Is it possible that while my back was turned, the DNC bought up every paper in the country except for the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Times?

I keep up my subscription, though, because I have this stubborn and maybe goofy idea that a daily newspaper is a hallmark of civilization.

And while I don't consider myself a conservative, I've found that in terms of reading a conventional daily newspaper, being a small-l libertarian is even worse.

Unless, that is, you think having twice as many things to disagree with a newspaper about is "better."

(From a blogger perspective, it may be!)

UPDATE: A related battle of the bilge (or maybe a battle between the bilges?) is the battle between newspapers and TV stations for online readers. This has produced what Jack D. Lail calls a "golden age":

A golden age amid the rubble of declining revenues for newspapers and local TV stations? A golden age amid downsizing that is shrinking to newsrooms to the lowest levels in decades? A golden age amid the the boardroom battles in some of the largest media companies?

It certainly is and I say freakin' bring it on.

All-media-meets on the Web has created a local news and advertising battlezone in market-after-market the likes of which I've never seen in a 30-plus-year career.

(And that's not even factoring in the role of blogs.... The more Golden Ages, the better!)

The National Rifle Association has more on Philadelphia Mayor Nutter's attempted enforcement of illegal and unconstitutional gun laws, and slams new Police Commissioner Ramsey for ignoring clear legal warnings from the District Attorney:

....while District Attorney Lynne Abraham previously advised Philadelphia's city council and mayor that their gun control proposals were unconstitutional, the city pressed on, defying the state's firearm preemption law in its attempt to circumvent the Pennsylvania legislature.

Enter Commissioner Ramsey, whose anti-gun leanings and arrogant, above-the-law mentalities have followed him to the City of Brotherly Love.

Not content with his city passing illegal gun control "laws," Ramsey is actually encouraging the City Council and Mayor Nutter to ignore the legal advice of city attorneys against enforcing the ordinances. Not only is he in favor of enforcing the illegal measures, he was recently quoted as saying, "As far as I am concerned, the laws are valid, and we will act as if this whole conversation with the D.A. just didn't take place."

When the City's Police Commissioner--the top law enforcement official--encourages the mayor and council members to ignore legal advice, that's not just blatantly arrogant and anti-gun, that's outrageous.

As expected, the National Rifle Association sprinted into court and got a temporary hold yesterday on the five gun-control laws enacted in Philadelphia.

Unexpected, however, was District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham's announcing that she wouldn't prosecute anyone charged under the new ordinances.

Call it selective prosecution.

Fed up with the daily shootings in Philadelphia, the City Council passed - and Mayor Nutter promptly signed - ordinances last week that limit handgun purchases, target gun trafficking, and subject gun ownership to much-needed greater oversight by the Police Department.

Kudos to Council and the mayor for their strong stand. Too bad Abraham refused to stand by them.

Lynne Abraham is a staunch gun control proponent, but because she is also bound by certain ethical responsibilities. If she were to deliberately bring baseless charges and engage in prosecutions she knew to be illegal, she'd be acting in bad faith, and could ultimately find herself in the predicament of Mike Nifong. Disbarred, and maybe facing prison time.

Would the Inquirer take her case?

Sheesh.

At the rate Nutter, Ramsey and the Inky are going, pretty soon they'll be calling their three ring circus a form of "civil disobedience."

I've long complained about lawbreakers who want to take guns away from law abiding citizens, and I remember what happened in New Orleans. But seeing lawless government officials encouraged by news media to break the law and violate the Constitution -- while an ethical District Attorney is slammed by the media for upholding the law -- reminds me that if it can happen here, it can happen anywhere.

I wish the Inquirer had the sense displayed in some of the local leftie alternative weeklies. Here's the Philadelphia City Paper's Michael Washburn:

How do we prevent tragedies like the one at Virginia Tech? One answer is to redefine gun control so that it's not something we inflict on good, law-abiding people, but rather, part of the package of punishments that we impose on those who have shown criminal and antisocial behavior.

But the problem with criminals is that they don't obey the law.

Maybe Nutter, Ramsey and the Inquirer can explain why.