Now I see this clearly. My whole life is pointed in one direction.

More bits...

I don't know why and I don't even know what it is but I really wanted the Arte y Pico award and was really tickled when Doctor Zaius tapped me to win it.



The origin of the award is here.

Because I'm always the bridesmaid when this is passed around I think I'm just about the last one on our little circle of friends that recieved this thing. As such I really don't think there's anybody on my blogroll that hasn't been to this dance already. If I'm wrong please let me know and I'll tap you right away.

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Hillary Clinton's speech was great. The only thing I would've liked was more digs on McCain. That problem isn't isolated to Clinton. It's something I've been complaining about regarding the convention since before it began.

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Having said that- Clinton and Montana Gov. Schweitzer and two of the stand out lines with regards to McCain. Clinton had the great "Twin Cities" jab and Schweitzer had a good line with regards to drilling for oil in John McCain's back yards "if he could remember where they are."

Humor is great but the fact of the matter is negative ads work and the Republicans are going to turn their entire four day convention into one big negative ad against Obama. I guess it's up to Biden tonight to go for the throat because there's no doubt Obama won't throw much red meat into his speech tomorrow night.

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I'm muting the network hosts altogether. They're worthless and it just gets my blood pressure up.

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I can't find the article now but I read something yesterday that labeled House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer as a "partisan firebrand." I got a chuckle out of that. Most of know Hoyer as the chief capitulator representing the Blue Dogs. He's all hat and no cattle.

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At an outside press conference Nancy Pelosi was confronted by a group of McCain supporters shouting "drill now!" Her response? "Can I drill your brain?" Sure it's juvenile but I like it.

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I won't be watching the Republican convention. Their candidate, and their party, are bankrupt in every sense of the word. I'll be declaring next week Animal Blogging Week and in honor of that I'll post some great pictures of a doe and her fawns that wandered into our camp while we were camping a couple of weeks ago.

We do not train to be merciful here. Mercy is for the weak. Here, in the streets, in competition: A man confronts you, he is the enemy.

A bunch of other miscellaneous stuff---

Pop star Madonna pisses off John McCain. As would be expected conservatives are throwing a hissy fit. How those guys can see themselves as muy macho while they whine like children who've just had their favorite toy taken away every time someone looks sideways at their candidate just escapes me.

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I watched some of the convention last night. A few observations--

It can't be emphasized enough that the talking heads suck. Most of the rest of the progressive blogsphere has talked about how the chattering hosts were simply clueless about everything they consider themselves "experts" on (I laughed out loud last night at a comment Charlie Gibson made about being a "political junky.")

My personal annoyance was how apologetic the media seemed at having to cover the dirty old democratic convention in the first place. Having to show Michelle Obama's biographical video sent the ABC hosts into a tizzy of warnings that the video was produced by democrats and they promise to show videos produced by republicans at the GOP convention next week. Never has the conservative domestication of the media been more apparent. Those guys are afraid of their own shadow.

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Kennedy's speech had me in tears. I couldn't shake the feeling this is the last time we're going to see that guy in action. The Kennedy's have become nothing but a punchline to the right in this country but to me they're still heroes.

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Shut up about the Clinton/ Obama spat already. There's no there, there. The media want to create a damned story line where none exists.

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Michelle Obama's speech had me AND my oldest daughter in tears. It's too bad she had to devote part of it to explaining to the audience why she loves America. In a rational world that wouldn't even be in question. We don't live in a rational world.

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I'm hoping that tonight and tomorrow night are the nights they trash McCain. Because he must be trashed. No mercy. Cobra Kai!

Whenever we get too high-hat and too sophisticated for flag-waving, some thug nation decides we're a push-over all ready to be blackjacked.

Dean's quick advice to the Democrats on how to have a successful convention--

Wrap it in the flag - Dems get killed every convention on this simple issue. Old glory needs to be EVERYWHERE. Not just on the giant digital display but actual flags. Flags need to permeate the crowd, clutter the stage and fill every nook and cranny of the center.

Make it about McCain - I'll never forget the talk leading up to both of the last major party conventions that they would be kindler, gentler affairs that focused on their own candidate. Instead both conventions would up focusing on Kerry- one buiding him up then the other trashing him. Dems need to trash McCain in at least a 60/40 ration to talking about Obama.

Youth and change - That's what Obama is selling and that's what the convention ought to be adverstising.

What surge? - Don't even discuss the surge when talking about Iraq. Instead focus again on the fact that the initial war was an act of sheer foreign policy idiocy. Anyone that supported that war doesn't have the judgement to be talking about foreign policy or national defense. Period. Bonus- make sure you mention Lieberman by name when pushing this.

There's no limit to what he could do. He could destroy the Earth.

I haven't made the blogger rounds in a couple of days but I imagine the news that Clinton may seek convention vote with a reaction approaching the hysterical rending of garments by my fellow Obama supporters.

In this case I think Clinton is absolutely correct when she says “I happen to believe that we will come out stronger if people feel that their voices were heard and their views respected. I think that is a very big part of how we actually come out unified.”

With such votes having a distinct and rich history during past Democratic conventions I really don't see what there is to complain about here.

It's injustice I hate, not the Normans.

If I had to reduce down all the stuff that's important to me in this presidential election to one thing it would be that we elect a democrat to replace and undo legacy the most destructive presidency in the history of the Republic.

At the core of my being that's the thing that drives me.

To that end who we picked to be the actual candidate was secondary. Sure, I had my preferences. I supported Kucinich then Edwards then Obama. But in the end the actual candidate was just a vessel towards my dreams of ending the stupid war in Iraq and restoring constitutional government to the United States.

Along the way my fellow Democrats did something incredible which I'm proud to be associated with: they narrowed the field down to a woman and an African-American man thus assuring that whomever the Democratic nominee would be that individual would be making history.

But just because I recognize this fact and respect the importance of such to the individual constituencies within the party to which this possibility represents the fulfillment of a dream I'm still left with the number one thing that's important to me being the election of the democrat as the President of the United States. In this sense it's less important to me that we're making history rather than the Bush presidency IS history.

We could argue about tactics and electability with regards to Clinton vs. Obama vs. McCain until we were blue in the face but I would like to say that, from a purely strategic level, I agree with Rachel Maddow that a nomination fight that goes to the convention will mean with absolute certainty that John McCain is elected president. A convention fight means a Bush third term.

John McCain has carefully cultivated a public persona which the help of a pliant press in which he's a moderate, centrist politician. The Democratic candidate for the presidency is going to have to break that image down and show McCain to be the lying, dishonest, corrupt, warmongering pol that he is. This is going to take some time. Two months isn't enough.

Put aside everything else that's taken place this primary season and take away this central fact: the candidate that decides to take the primary fight to the convention will be hurting the chances that we will elect a democrat as president in November.

They'll be hurting the chance that we'll end the war in Iraq.

They'll be hurting the chance that we'll bring some balance back to the federal courts.

They'll be hurting our chance to slow global warming and our dependence on foreign oil.

They'll be hurting our chance to restore the constitution to it's rightful place as the backbone of our government.

They'll be ensuring that we get courts that refuse to protect the rights of women to make their own decisions over their own bodies, a Civil Rights Department that believes it's mandate is to protect the rights of corporations when threatened by employees and a Justice Department that believes torture and detainment without representation actually fit within the framework that the founders built this country on.

Finish the voting and work out a solution to Florida/ Michigan at the Rules & Bylaws Committee meeting on the 31st but then end this damn thing. The consequences are too great to play political games.

We need a Democrat to be the one sworn in come January.

Or we'll all be history.