Open Thread for Night Owls & Early Birds

Ullrich Fichtner at Der Spiegel writes:

^{Why NATO Troops Can't Deliver Peace in Afghanistan}

Good days are in short supply in Afghanistan, a country at war -- or involved in several wars, to be exact. There is constant fighting on many fronts, hard and soft. The newspapers, and there are many of them in Kabul now, serve up pages of chaotic images every day. Their reports are about bombs and drinking water, holy warriors and wheat prices, NATO air attacks and schoolbooks, kidnapped children, refugees and bandits.

Almost seven years have passed since the overthrow of the Taliban regime, and in those seven years half of the world has tried to bring a better future and, most of all, peace to this new country, the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. As part of the NATO military operation known as the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), 40 nations have 60,000 soldiers deployed in the country. There are 26 United Nations organizations in Afghanistan, and hundreds of private and government agencies are pumping money, materials and know-how into the country's 34 provinces. But anyone seeking success stories or asking about failures will encounter reports that do not seem to be coming from the same country.

According to the speeches and statements Western military officials, diplomats and politicians are constantly churning out, the security situation has improved substantially, the military successes are obvious and the Taliban are as good as defeated. But peace and Afghanistan, say the Afghanis when speaking to a domestic audience, are still two incompatible words.

Last year, 1,469 bombs exploded along Afghan roads, a number almost five times as high as in 2004. There were 8,950 armed attacks on troops and civilian support personnel, 10 times more than only three years earlier. One hundred and thirty suicide bombers blew themselves up in 2007. There were three suicide bombings in 2004.

See Brandon Friedman's Sunday Diary on this subject here.

Total American military fatalities in Iraq since March 2003: 4083

Total coalition fatalities in that period: 4397

Total American military fatalities in Afghanistan since 2001: 513.

Total coalition fatalities in that period: 837

Total war-related Afghan fatalities in that period: Unknown

Total suicides among men and women who have served in Iraq since then: Uncertain. The Army reported Thursday that the suicide rate has increased this year, just as it increased in 2007 over 2006.

Total Iraqi fatalities because of the invasion and occupation: Uncertain - 200,000 to 1.4 million

Open Thread and Diary Rescue

This evening's Rescue Rangers are claude, Got A Grip, ezdidit, smokeymonkey, TruthOfAngels, and joyful, with watercarrier4diogenes scrounging around in the pockets of the Robes of Objectivity, looking for the Wand of 'Seriousness' (tm) Glenzilla

To open this evening's Rescue, FishOutofWater provides a "strong stomachs only" example of the Bush Administration's real impact on the Iraqi people in This is what our soldiers are dying for? (Got A Grip)

• Grace Is Gone is a heartfelt offering from JohnBruhns of a memory of a mortar attack in Iraq that ultimately salutes all women in uniform. (joyful)
• Dante Zappala shares the gift of how to forgive while never forgetting in Bob Herbert and my big brother. (Got a Grip)
• Legacy is first-time diarist budr's beautiful memorial to a man who dearly loved the land. (joyful)
• Enabled by the magic of Diary Rescue's own interesting time coordinates, A Siegel brings us two diaries on the important topic of the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, with a review of its most glaring flaws in Physicians take a Socially Responsible Stand and Boxer's Radio Jab on Global Warming. (Got a Grip)
• With a lot of details and resource links, Asinus Asinum Fricat gives some insight into the question of Speculators Pushing Up Food Prices? (claude)
• distraught documents Republican obstruction on an important global healthcare bill in Senate: Overcoming 7 Rs hold on global health $ (& learn something). (TruthOfAngels)
• We get a resource-full second opinion from New Deal Democrat about the Countdown to $100 Oil ?!? Subsidies, hoarding, and bailing out billionaires. (claude)
• Obama, Reagan, and the Politics of Transformation is an attempt by tmservo433 to explain Obama's comments on Reagan's legacy. (smokeymonkey)
• vancookie encourages everyone to remember that the vast majority of Democrats will support our nominee, whoever that eventually turns out to be, in In Praise of Clinton Supporters. (Got a Grip)
• Raj47905 offers some advice on How Obama can win, pt. 1: Defense. (ezdidit)
• In this short report from the grassroots of the American Federation of Teachers, midcoastman wants us to know that Liz Smith and Tina Flournoy don't represent my members on the rules committee. (claude)
• Lithium Cola explains how BushCo and the Iraqi Prime Minister are trying to make an end around both countries' legislatures in Coming in July: Bush and Maliki's Tag-Team Swindle. (Got a Grip)
• From the fingertips of iampunha comes June 1, 1843: an ever-unFaulding story of the pioneer of forensic fingerprinting. (joyful)

Enjoy and please promote your own favorite diaries in this open thread (even if you're the author! Here's where that's actually appreciated). And, of course, since it's an open thread, PLAY NICE, OK? 8^)

My Math Beats Up Clinton Math.

(Promoted from the diaries by kos)

I'm sorry.  I simply can't take some of what I'm hearing on cable news as they cover the Clinton win in Puerto Rico and continue to repeat Clinton campaign talking points in her "rationale" to secure the Democratic Presidential nomination.

In the past three or four hours I have heard Harold Ickes, Terry McAuliffe, and Bill Schneider (CNN political analyst) repeatedly assert that Clinton is winning the popular vote.  I have further heard each refer to the 1972 Democratic nominating process, where Humphrey won the popular vote yet McGovern won the delegates, and McGovern was resoundingly shellacked by Nixon (what that has to do with anything, I don't know, but they're saying it).  Yet there was only one caution, from Anderson Cooper, that Clinton's popular vote "lead" over Obama comes with substantial caveats on the part of the Clinton campaign.  So I've done my own math.
Up-Front Disclosures

First, it's important that I clearly spell out what I am and am NOT counting in the math I've done.  I've based my calculations on two basic arguments the Clinton campaign is making:

1. That she is more electable in November;

2. That the popular vote she claims to lead is indicative of electability.

So here is what I have excluded from MY math:

Democrats Abroad
Guam
Puerto Rico
American Samoa
Virgin Islands

None of these groups/Commonwealths/territories are afforded electors in a general Presidential election.  So going with Clinton argument #1 above, they are excluded as electors are not assigned.

Here's what the Clinton camp is basing their assertion on.  With the exception of PR, all vote totals were taken from CNN's Election Center.  Use the drop-down box to scroll through each state's primary to confirm totals.

CNN reported as well that Clinton is waiting, after the PR vote totals are finalized, to release two new ads touting having gone over 17,000,000 total votes.  Her surrogates will continue to push the "Clinton Math", which is now clearly outlined above.

Just for giggles, here's what is excluded from the Clinton Math:

Alaska
Colorado
Hawaii
Idaho
Iowa
Kansas
Maine
Minnesota
Nebraska
Nevada
North Dakota
Texas (Caucus only)
Washington
Wyoming

ANY popular votes for Obama in Michigan

Again - my math is based on the two core assertions of the Clinton campaign (electability and popular vote lead).  First the primary states:

You'll note that I gave "Uncommitted's" popular vote back to Obama because it's ludicrous to assume that NO ONE showed up to vote for Obama (eye roll).  Yesterday's ruling regarding Michigan in the Democratic Rules and Bylaws Committee backs me up on this.

Under MY primary math, Obama is still slightly behind Clinton in popular votes.  But remember - there are FOURTEEN states that held caucuses which are NOT included in any of the math so far.  So I went out and did some estimating.  Democratic caucus turnout estimates for Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, and Wyoming were found here.  I had to stretch on estimates for the remaining three caucus states.  I used this mention for Hawaii's turnout estimate, this mention for Texas' caucus turnout, and this mention for Washington's turnout estimate.  I recognize that this is imperfect on my part - but at least I'm WAY ahead of Clinton's campaign in that at least I'm trying to base my estimate on some objective, fair fact.

So here's my chart:

The key thing to look at on this chart is the percentage won by each of Clinton and Obama (pulled from CNN's Election Center) and the estimate of turnout.  The "popular votes" (e.g., people who showed up) assigned to each candidate is simply the total turnout estimate multiplied by the percentage won in each caucus state.

So you can see, in MY math, the totals for the primary contests and then the totals for the caucus contests.  So pulling it ALL together (drumroll please):

When you use Clinton's own criteria and apply that criteria fairly, Obama clearly wins the so-called "popular vote".

Of course, there's only ONE math that matters:

But as long as her campaign wants to distribute misleading (and frankly dishonest), cherry-picked "popular vote" figures, I wanted to set the record straight.

Enjoy your Sunday!

Mid-afternoon open thread

So the Chicago Cubs have the best record in baseball, while the Tampa Bay Rays have the second best (while leading the American League East). The Yankees have been hovering in and just barely out of last place.

Hell hasn't frozen over just yet. The season is less than 1/3rd of the way done. But global warming doesn't appear to be having an impact in the netherworld.

This is an open thread, but one in which trash talking about yodur favorite teams is particularly encouraged.