Open Thread

I don't know about you, but it's been a brutally long week here at DarkSyde Manor. So thank the powers that be it's Friday and have an open thread & video on me courtesy of our friends at the National Center for Science Education.

And speaking of science, I should have a panel announcement in the next week or so for Netroots Nation 2008, the subject of which will be reviewing past damage to science policy and repairing same after the disasterous Bush Administration thankfully ends.

Open Thread for Night Owl & Early Birds

Every day, a bunch of us have been wondering what Mark Penn, the former chief strategist for the Clinton campaign, has been doing with his spare time since he became former. Apparently, he's trying for publication in the Consulting Poetry Journal. His latest submission seems to have gone awry and found its way into our e-mail spambox. Our advice: Don't quit your day job. (Whoops!)

If

If you can keep running when all about you
Are afraid of losing and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself alone when your party doubts you
And trusts another far more, too,
If you can wait for superdelegates to turn,
Lying will help, there's no harm in lies,
Or being hated, don't give a damn about haters,
But don't hesitate to feign hurt, and sometimes cry:

If you can bowl--and not make the blue collar your master,
If you can do shots--and not lose your game;
If you can sit down with both Russert and Blitzer
And charm those two jagoffs to advance your aims;
If you can bear to hear your name cursed
By the best in the the party you claim to love,
And watch that party become rent and broken,
And laugh as you focus on rising above:

If you can talk with crowds, yet remember CEOs own you,
Or sit on Wal-Mart's board, yet charm union bigs
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If you can screw them all just for the top gig,
If you can destroy the progressive movement
With a rank selfishness borne of certainty,
Yours is the donkey and what's left of its carcass,
And--which is all that matters--you'll be the nominee!

American military fatalities in Iraq since March 2003: 4050

Coalition military fatalities in Iraq: 4359

Iraqi civilian and military fatalities: 200,000 to 1.4 million, depending on the source.

The Overnight News Digest is posted.

Open Thread and Diary Rescue

This evening's Rescue Rangers are ybruti, hhex65, joyful, jlms qkw, Louisiana 1976 and grog with Avila (h/t Unitary Moonbat) as editor.

• gjohnsit provides us with a few Lessons from another forgotten American occupation. Seems like we're old hands at botching Iraq-like situations. (grog)
• With interesting details about the "back-door draft" and its history over several administrations, daytonpundit reminds us that 'Stop Loss' is Alive and Well. (ybruti)
• Shane Hensinger's International Law and the War in Iraq details the many reasons the 2003 US-led invasion was illegal from the start. (joyful)
• In 10 cents in one day! Plus a rationing story, devtob starkly predicts that the sort of fuel rationing now going on in Scotland will take place in the US. (Louisiana 1976)
• Forgiven connects the dots between McCain's current choice of campaign photo ops and how he'll try to portray himself this fall in Not Another Compassionate Conservative. (grog)
• k9disc looks at the correlation between less money and less freedom in The Republican Dream: A Sweatshop Economy. (grog)
• Angel of Mercy's The Republican Erosion of America is half-rant, half-history lesson, and all-thoughtful. (joyful)
• Before you think that Johnny Venom is insane when he says Vote Democrat...live longer? A visual guide, look carefully at his charts. Not so mad now, eh? (grog)
• Seeking to free the U.S. from its dependence on oil, Stranded Wind describes visionary projects in Walkabout #5: Consultations & Contemplations. In Iowa, for example, a company proposes the wind driven production of ammonia for fertilizer. (ybruti)
• Susan Rosenthal clarifies the current conflict between the California Nurses Association (CNA) and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in War in the House of Labor. (hhex65)
• talk about race now makes poetry from the pain of a youthful memory in A N*gger for a Day: Okkklahoma Burning. (joyful)
• DWG offers a frightening look at Another surge in greenhouse gases, with an injection of cynical humor.  (jlms qkw)

We hope you'll enjoy these diaries as much as we did. Please promote your own favorites in the open thread.

Just Imagine

Tuesday:

The No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq expressed hope on Wednesday that radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr would use his influence to stop his followers from attacking U.S. and Iraqi forces as clashes spread to the outskirts of Baghdad.   [...]

Despite heightened rhetoric by al-Sadr and his followers, U.S. commanders have been careful not to directly link the cleric to the current fighting...

"We do not attribute what we've seen to JAM," said Lt. Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, using the Iraqi acronym for the Mahdi Army.

But he acknowledged that al-Sadr could stop the attacks.

Now imagine the reaction had a Democrat traveled to Iraq three days ago and:

...mocked anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as a coward Sunday, hours after the militia leader threatened to declare war unless U.S. and Iraqi forces end a military crackdown on his followers.

Think of the outcry and the outrage.  They would be denounced by the White House, with every T.V. talking head and newspaper dutifully repeating that those irresponsible words have endangered U.S. troops and threatened all of our success in Iraq.  But since it was Condoleezza Rice who said it, there's been nary a word.  

Rice went on to say:

I know he's sitting in Iran. I guess it's all-out war for anybody but him. I guess that's the message; his followers can go to their deaths, and he's in Iran.

It seems that Ms. Rice got everything right but the country.