Open Thread and Diary Rescue

This evening's Rescue Rangers are PaintyKat, jlms qkw, Shayera, watercarrier4diogenes, and joyful (doing a double!) with vcmvo2 as editor.

One of the illusions of life is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year ~Ralph Waldo Emerson~

The diaries up for rescue are:

• mindgeek describes why swiftboating is so effective and how "your brain lies to you" in this fascinating diary: The neuroscience of false beliefs. (vcmvo2)
• Progressive Identity Project #6 - "It's the Media, Stupid." is a lovely diary from mikeplugh on how communication defines our world. (joyful)
• A Siegel discusses the appropriateness (or lack thereof) of WaPo's new tradition in TRADITION! WashPost Global Warming reporting Fair and Balanced. (jlms qkw)

• Dr Colossus says the data-mining programs went right into the doggy bowl as the world's oldest excuse is given by FBI to GAO: Dog Ate My Homework. (joyful)
• Stranded Wind continues his personal reporting of health-care coverage in mASS Health? Not as bad as Iowa Care. There is a good report in the comments. (jlms qkw)

• MotleyPatriot reflects on our constitutional rights and their history in Pragmatism circa 1773. (jlms qkw)
• Hello! Is anybody awake in there? therealcervantes is just wondering, since there has been so little from the traditional media on the attempted murder of Afghan's president. (joyful)

• tmservo433 reviews the new Pixar movie for us in WALL*E = great social commentary, great film. Just like rottentomatoes.com, the NYT, and every other review I saw, the diarist liked it! (jlms qkw)
• jimstaro brings us a sad tale of a billionaire businessman who broke his promise to America's veterans in Shame On You T Boone, Shame on you. (joyful)
• warmmidwest tells Kossacks about a progressive company taking a stand against a conservative business business group in Wisconsin Corporation Takes Political Stand. (shayera)
• WarrenS suggests only Presidents or their advisers who understand the music of other cultures can formulate effective policies in Learning to Understand the Music. (PaintyKat)

• June 27, 1880: sight unseen, sound unheard, sense undeterred is iampunha's celebration of the miracle of Helen Keller. (joyful)
• We saw Obama leave his church, now Milos Janus Outlook brings us the prospect of a church leaving one of its members, in Diane Smock, George Bush and SMU. (watercarrier4diogenes)
• Now that the LGBT community is being recognized, even courted, bilerico offers 3 Simple Rules for Politicians, a tome every progressive candidate should read. (watercarrier4diogenes)

Enjoy and please promote your own favorite diaries in this Open Thread.

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Dog Soldiers

[Promoted by DHinMI: Take a little time to read this diary (that started out on the "right side of the site") and ponder blueness' ruminations about clear-eyed commitment to principles, about being honest, but also about having a sense of proportion.]

As we watch these Kossacks consume themselves in flames, we hear them roar that on FISA Obama has sounded a Retreat, on a Principle, one that is Not To Be Borne. Better, they snarl, to vote for Nader, or Barr, or no one at all, than to continue to fetch, roll over, play dead for such a man. Better to die like a lion, bay they, than to live like a dog.

Since that Saturday when Senator Clinton at last acknowledged defeat, this site has become increasingly aware that Obama is, uh, Not Perfect. It is going to be a long summer, and an even longer fall. And in that time, Obama will, many times, Disappoint.

What to do, what to do . . . .    

What a Coincidence!

In what is no doubt yet another amazing coincidence to those who don't accept evolutionary biology, a fish with four, well formed leg-like paddles turns up in the fossil record:

The aquatic creature, which lived during the late Devonian period about 365 million years ago, represented an evolutionary midpoint between Tiktaalik, one of the earliest fish to clamber onto land, and primitive four-legged land animals, or tetrapods.

And would you believe the new critter, Ventastega curonica, was found at exactly the right time in paleohistory, and with the exact suite of anatomical characteristics to make it cleverly appear like a snapshot of major evolution in action literally cast in stone? Gosh, I wonder, what the hell do these damn evil evolushunists know about so-called "walking" fish anyway ...