Open Thread and Diary Rescue

This evening's Rescue Rangers are Louisiana 1976, Yashua, dopper0189, BentLiberal, grog and noddem, with jennyjem as editor.

Tonight's list begins with a reminder of the flooding in the Midwest, and its impact on both people and the environment.

• With all that has been going on, the Midwest disaster zone has already faded from the headlines. alkalinesky discusses traveling to Indiana and meeting with flood survivors while gaining new insights on charity in I am only a witness. (Louisiana 1976)
• In Remember the Promise You Made in the Attic, OHeyeO looks at how Dayton, Ohio's 90 year old flood control works offer a blueprint for modern urban areas located alongside rivers. (grog)
• FishOutofWater forecasts that polluted Mississippi flood waters will increase dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico in Flood Will Cause Huge Gulf Kill Zone, Seas Suffocating Globally. (dopper0189)
• A Siegel looks at the barriers facing the move toward hybrid taxis in Energy Smart: Greening taxis. (grog)
• mem from somerville is encouraged and encouraging with an upbeat diary that acknowledges that positive change sometimes arrives on little cat feet. (BentLiberal)
• annetteboardman decides that It is nice when I can buy local. Every urban dweller here in DK should read this to get a glimpse of how your "country cousins" live. (grog)
• In Obama vs McCain: Web standards and open source, woolie looks under the hood of the campaign websites and finds one looking to the future and the other mired in the past. (BentLiberal)
• davefromqueens has 97 Questions For John Mccain. The office pool is now open on how long it will take the traditional media to ask the first one. I get dibs on "never". (grog)
• SteveYoung provides a little snark in New Study of Talk Show Host Brains Calls For Compassion Not Scorn. (dopper0189)

Enjoy and please promote your own favorite diaries in this open thread.

The Terror Card

McCain campaign adviser Charlie Black is getting ripped for suggesting that a terrorist attack would bode well for the GOP nominee. Black quickly apologized for it, John McCain just as quickly distanced himself from it, so I have no desire to make hay with it here. My questions is rather, is it even true?

It's safe to assume that through 2004 it probably would have helped the Bush administration and thus the Republicans. But what about now, in 2008? Well, hard to say. And much of the eventual reaction might be a function of how bad an attack we're talking about here. If it were a London style train bombing vs an apocalyptic event topping the original 9-11 attacks, would that make a difference?

I don't think it's all clear that a terror attack would indisputably help the GOP at this point. It might even hurt them terribly. In stark contrast to the years immediately following September 2001, President Bush is about as popular as a yeast infection, the GOP hasn't been trusted on terrorism significantly more than democrats for a couple of years. Moreover, the neocons and related media and PR mouthpieces have been whining and promising for years now that everything from Iraq to suspension of the Bill of Rights is necessary because it will protect us from another terror attack, and they've done so at the myopic exclusion of virtually every other issue on the political playing field. What happens if and when that rationale is laid to waste?

Daily Kos Panelists at Netroots Nation

Netroots Nation just published the complete conference agenda for next month's gathering in Austin. A number of Daily Kos Contributing Editors and Featured Writers are serving as panelists:

• Energizing America: Setting an Agenda for Progress (Meteor Blades, Devilstower)

• The Next President and the Law (Adam B.)

• Working from the Inside Out: Success Stories in Netroots Organizing (mcjoan)

• Restructuring U.S. Science Policy (DarkSyde)

• Hot Topic Panel (Hunter)

• Bloggers and Books: Think Before You Write (Markos)

• 60/275: The Races We Aren't Watching but Should (and Those We're Watching, Too) (Brownsox, DavidNYC, Markos)

If you're going to be a Netroots Nation panelist yourself, tell us about your panel in comments.

Obama on FISA: "National Security" Trumps Amnesty

In a reversal of previous policy statements, from October, 2007 and January, 2008, and again in February, 2008, Barack Obama now says telco amnesty just isn't that important. Greg Sargent:

Asked specifically why he's supporting the current FISA bill when he'd promised months ago to support a filibuster of an earlier version of the bill, Obama suggested flat out that "national security" overrides the question of telecom immunity... It's true that Obama says mitigating things like we need to be "watching the watchers." But here's the key quote from him:

"The bill has changed. So I don't think the security threats have changed, I think the security threats are similar. My view on FISA has always been that the issue of the phone companies per se is not one that overrides the security interests of the American people."

Obama's line on national security here seems to be affirmation of something that many understood already: That he will support the bill even if telecom immunity isn't stripped from it, despite his promise to try to get immunity out of the legislation. If the issue of telecom immunity doesn't override national security, he'll of course vote for the bill with or without it.

Not that telco amnesty and national security really have anything to do with each other, or that this FISA bill actually does make us safer. It's disturbing, to say the least, to see that Senator Obama has adopted the talking points of Steny Hoyer and the right on the issue.

Despite this setback, hopefully Biden (D-DE) - Boxer (D-CA) - Brown (D-OH) - Cantwell (D-WA) - Dodd (D-CT) - Durbin (D-IL) - Feingold (D-WI) - Harkin (D-IA) - Kerry (D-MA) - Lautenberg (D-NJ) - Leahy (D-VT) - Menendez (D-NJ) - Sanders (I-VT) - Schumer (D-NY) - Wyden (D-OR) will maintain their opposition to this terrible bill and continue their efforts to, at a minimum, strip the Bush/Cheney/AT&T amnesty from it.