A wonderful day in the neighbohood.

I actually thought that it would never happen. Or that I wouldn't around to see it somehow. Apparently I was wrong and I couldn't be more happy about it. Even the petty things like holding up Hillary's nomination see, well, petty at this point.

I realize it is back to the normal BS tomorrow and that Obama will have to deal with obstructionist idealogs. AndI suspect he will indeed deal with them. But for this one day it was wonderful to see a liberal take the oath of office of the President. And tell us how liberal views will advance us.

Yet another reason that the Palin choice might have been a bad one for McCain

There are all of the obvious reasons of course. Possible corruption, no experience, ties to goofy groups, wanting to ban books. Well, you know, the normal stuff for religious extremists. But there is one other reason that I haven't heard mentioned. In a word, Hillary.

I have been more than a little bit concerned that Hillary was at best not going to support Obama and at worst, actively although not directly, undermining him. I should say that in the time since she conceded I think that has not been the case, and that she has supported Obama. But I was still concerned. And certainly lots of people thought that the Palin nomination was an attempt to splinter off Hillary supporters from the Democratic camp.

But is that really reasonable now? Hillary has been planning her political raise since she was at law school according to some, and its hard to believe she hasn't been planning it at least since the early 90's. If come next January we have a Vice President Palin, Hillary will no longer be the most important woman in American politics. She will no longer be the woman most likely to be the first female president. She will have been completely upstaged by the former mayor of a city of 9000 people. That cannot be a very happy thought for Senator Clinton. I would strongly suspect that Hillary is going to put everything she can into seeing that Obama gets elected and that the next vice president is Joe Biden, not Sarah Palin. Clinton is probably also going nuts seeing the media criticize the Democrats for being critical of Palin. A lot of those same media people sure didn't see anything wrong about treating women that way when they were applying the double standard to Hillary.

McCain really needs to think things through before he starts talking.

The story is here:

McCain questions speech, forgets Canada

So McCain is complaining about Obama giving a speech in Berlin. Well, okay, McCain gave a speech in Canada so why was that okay is the story line. And it isn't a bad question except that when it comes down to it, hypocrisy from McCain isn't exactly news.

But there is another story line as well. While Obama was giving a speech to an estimated 200,000 people in Berlin, McCain countered by having lunch at someplace called the "Sausage Haus" in Columbus, Ohio. But let's do some math here. Obama spoke to 200,000 people in Berlin. What percentage of them were from the U.S.? You know, tourists, business travelers, soldiers on leave, expats living in Berlin. Maybe 1%? Maybe 0.5%? Or 5%? Let's be conservative, because that is so much fun and say 0.5%. If I'm doing my sums correctly that would be about 1000 people from the US in that crowd. And it it were 5% it would be 10,000 people from the US in the crowd. How big is that "Sausage Haus"?

John McCain isn't getting the good press he got in the past

And he is upset by it. Whining even. For about 10 years the press in this country have followed McCain around like googoo eyed teenagers. He could do no wrong and they built his silly and unfounded image as a maverick. He even referred to the press as "his base". Very cute.

Except now there is a cooler guy in the house and the press seem to be following him all of a sudden. John's press fans are gone. And John's feelings are hurt. I guess now he knows how his first wife felt.

Thirty nine years ago today.

I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. - John Kennedy

And on July 20, 1969 it happened. The sixties were a lot like the aughts or naughts or whatever you chose to call the fiasco of a decade we are in. Well, the aughts are like the 60s without the good parts. There were two counterbalancing trends in the 60s, the dreadfulness of what seemed like a never ending war and the excitement and challenge of the changes in music and culture and the race to the moon. Now we just have the never ending war. Well, and a collapsing housing market, crumbling infrastructure and a general loss of faith in the future. That is something that even with Vietnam going on and on, we didn't have in the 60s. Vietnam was a problem, a big one for many, but it didn't seem like the future would be worse than the present. That isn't the way it is now. The Iraq war is less of a war in terms of lives, but at a time when there just isn't enough of the fortune and energy of the country to go around. And it shows.

What is the difference between a "timeline" and a "time horizon"

Bush adviser says Iraq timeline "very dangerous" - Yahoo! News

About the only difference I can tell is that a "timeline" is one word and a "time horizon" probably two words. But I don't think that is what White House getting at. Maybe, their incompetence and failure has reduced them to counting words though. I would be more impressed with the administration if they were more concerned about counting lost lives in Iraq rather than lost words. But that is much to much to hope for at this stage.