Candidates asked about Mid-west flooding: McCain says he will pray. Obama grabs a shovel.

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Faith Based Federal Emergency Responses simply won't do anymore John McWon't... This isn't enough buddy... Obama buried that today when he grabbed a shovel and worked.

ARLINGTON, VA -- U.S. Senator John McCain today issued the following statement on the flooding in the Midwest:

"Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those impacted by the flooding throughout the Midwest. Cindy and I would like to extend our sympathies to all those who have lost loved ones, and stand ready to help those in the Midwest to recover and rebuild."


Is it too much to ask for a President that we can Respect... Enough with the Talk, Grab a Shovel!
Obama visited the flooded Midwest later Saturday, stopping in Quincy, Ill., to help fill sandbags.

In Quincy, Obama helped volunteers fill sandbags that are being trucked to reinforce levees on both sides of the Mississippi River, less than a mile away. Authorities expected the river at Quincy to reach a near-record level of 32 feet by Wednesday. Severe flooding already has hit Cedar Rapids, Iowa, northwest of Quincy.

"Since I've been involved in public office we've not seen this kind of devastation," Obama said as he used a shovel to fill bags being held by local resident Dylan Muldoon, 10. He vowed to push the federal and state governments to provide needed aid to the stricken areas.

Fox News Would Like To Take a Moment To Remind You That the Obamas Are As Black As Satan’s Festering, Baby-Eating Soul

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Back in the day – you know, when presidential candidates were respectably white – news organizations called potential First Ladies “wives.” But now that black folks are running, we can get all funky fresh with the lingo, yo. So it’s basically fine for Fox News to use “Baby Mama” for Michelle Obama, slang that implies a married 44-year-old Princeton-educated lawyer is, to use an Urban Dictionary definition of the term, “some chick you knocked up on accident during a fling who you can’t stand but you have to tolerate cuz she got your baby now.” Because the Obamas are black! And the blacks, they’re all relaxed about that shit, yo. Word up. And anyway, as the caption clearly indicates, it’s not Fox News that’s calling Michelle Obama “Baby Mama,” it’s outraged liberals. Fox News is just telling you what those outraged liberals are saying. They didn’t want to use the term “Baby Mama.” But clearly they had no choice.

Meanwhile, over at her personal site, Michelle “Fox News’ Ethnic Shield” Malkin defends Fox News’ use of the “Baby Mama” phrase by essentially making two arguments. First, Michelle Obama once called Barack Obama her “baby’s daddy,” and as we all know, a married woman factually and correctly calling her husband her child’s father is exactly the same as a major news organization calling a potential First Lady some chick what got knocked up on a fling. Second, the term “baby-daddy” has gone out into the common culture; heck, even Tom Cruise was called Katie Holmes’ baby-daddy, you know, when he impregnated her and she subsequently gave birth while the two were not married, which is exactly like what happened between Michelle and Barack Obama, who were married in 1992 and whose first child was born six years later.

So by Malkin’s reasoning it’s perfectly fine for Fox News to call Michelle Obama the unmarried mother of Barack Obama’s children because an entirely different phrase has to her mind entered the common culture, and there was this one time that Michelle Obama once uttered something that sounded like that entirely different phrase, which is not the phrase that Fox News used. But wait! Malkin also points to someone in her comment thread saying that one time, Michelle Obama actually used the phrase “baby daddy”! No apostrophe! It’s in a comment thread, so it must be true. Therefore, Michelle Obama apocryphally using a piece of urban slang makes it perfectly okay for Fox News to use an entirely different piece of urban slang. And that’s why, you see, it won’t be a problem for Bill O’Reilly to refer to Barack Obama as “my nigga” on the next O’Reilly Factor.

It’s shit like this that makes this story on CNN, about whether Barack Obama should be considered black or biracial, an absolute hoot. Here’s a quick test on whether Obama should be considered fully black: Poof! Barack Obama has been magically transported to a KKK meeting in deepest, whitest Klanistan without his Secret Service detail. There’s a rope and a tree nearby. What happens to Obama? If you say, “why, Barack Obama walks out of there alive, of course” then sure, he’s biracial. Also, you’re a fucking idiot. To everybody who cares about Obama’s racial identity, either positively or negatively, the man is a black man, married to a black woman, who has black children. Black black black black black black black black.

It sure as hell matters to Fox News, which is why it’s dog whistling about Barack so loudly that it’s vibrating the windows. Calling Michelle Obama a “baby mama” isn’t just Fox News having a happy casual larf; it’s using urban slang to a) remind you the Obamas are black, b) belittle a woman of considerable personal accomplishment, and c) frame Barack Obama’s relationship to his wife and children in a way that insults him, minimizes his love for and commitment to his family, and reinforces stereotypes about black men. Someone at Fox News just ought to call Barack Obama “boy” at some point so we can have all the cards right out there on the table.

This will keep happening. Fox News will keep finding ways to remind its viewers that the Obamas are black (and possibly Muslim), Michelle Malkin will continue to make excuses for Fox News’ dog-whistling racism that expose the fact that she’s about as familiar with logical thinking as a rainbow trout is with knitting, and eventually some portion of the Fox News audience will get to the ballot box in November convinced that they’re not really racists, they just know that there’s something about that Obama boy they just don’t like. This is how it will go. Let’s not pretend it’s not part of equation, this election year.

Article courtesy of Whatever.

Failed Clinton Campaign $30 Million In Debt

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AP reports that Clinton will report about $30 million in debt, $11 million of it to herself, and that she'll seek Obama's help in clearing it.

That's a lot of money.

A few notes here: First, she's under no personal obligation to pay it off. The debt belongs to her committee, not to her personally, and if she wants to run again, she can start another committee. But if she doesn't clear it, it'll make fundraising and dealing with vendors much harder on a future run, and generate quite a bit of ill will.

Second, Obama can't pay it directly. He can ask his donors to help. There's a question of whether they'll balk at the $11 million that would go directly back into the Clintons' pockets.

Third, Clinton is able to conduct a kind of trade. She has her own massive fundraising machine, and can now point it in Obama's direction — though many of her donors will go that way with or without her urging.

Also: Expect Clinton to do a lot of fundraising for Senate and House candidates this cycle, another way to cement her place as a leader of the party.

Six Degrees of Wikipedia

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A researcher at Trinity College Dublin has software that lets users map the links between Wikipedia pages. His Web site is called “Six Degrees of Wikipedia,” modeled after the trivia game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.” Instead of the degrees being measured by presence in the same film, degrees are determined by articles that link to each other.

For example, how many clicks through Wikipedia does it take to get from “Gatorade” to “Genghis Khan”? Three: Start at “Gatorade,” then click to “Connecticut,” then “June 1,” then “Genghis Khan.”

Stephen Dolan, the researcher who created the software, has also used the code to determine which Wikipedia article is the “center” of Wikipedia—that is, which article is the hub that most other articles must go through in the “Six Degrees” game. Not including the articles that are just lists (e.g., years), the article closest to the center is “United Kingdom,” at an average of 3.67 clicks to any other article. “Billie Jean King” and “United States” follow, with an average of 3.68 clicks and 3.69 clicks, respectively.

More detailed information can be found on Mr. Dolan’s Web site.


Article reposted from the Chronicle.