Myanmar Cyclone

The humanitarian crisis occurring in Myanmar seems to be getting worse and worse everyday as the ruling junta refuses to allow foreign aid into the country. Food, fresh water, and fuel are incredibly scarce causing civil unrest in the hardest hit areas. CNN has posted a series of satellite photos that show the coastline and farmlands before and after the cyclone hit. The immense damage they depict is staggering. 

Aftermath

For a while there last night, it looked like my first ever blogdiction was going to be golden, as Hillary held that four point advantage for so long. I was happy to be slowly thrown off though as Obama slowly closed the gap. When, to quote early Atrios, “literally dozens of people are reading this on an almost monthly basis” I am committed to prediction threads with or without election results because I love predictions and this is the perfect format for them. 

As far as the state of the race, I think no bit of punditry was more revealing than media Sun-God Tim Russert saying “We now know who the Democratic nominee is going to be, and no one is going to dispute it.”  

Russert has so many sycophants throughout the media that to me this sounds like a death knell for the bullshit “neck and neck” narrative that refuses to die. I think if Obama does rack up enough superdelegates to pass Hillary in the next few days (he’s only down by 15-20) then you will see the media shift its collective focus to Obama vs. McCain regardless of whether Hillary withdraws or not. However, he’s not off to  good start as the only Super to endorse today so far was Rep Heath Schuler who endorsed Senator Clinton. I knew a felt a jinx when Georgie was mouthing off about “bunches of superdelegates” on GMA this morning. 

 

Bubbles

A swedish professor has compiled the extensive library of world wide data collected by the United Nations in an ingenious statistical program at his website gapminder.org. The site’s Gapminder World application allows you to plot different axes of world data versus each other and play a chronology of the resulting relationship over a 55 year time span. What makes the site so magnetic is the interface in which the data is presented. Groups of circles, sized according to population and color coded to their respective continents, shift and enlarge as the chronology progresses creating a vivid story. I suggest plotting the Number of Internet Users per Capita versus C02 Emissions. When the cursor gets to 1990 you’ll understand why.

Fearless Prediction Episode I

This is the part of blogging I was looking forward to most: predictions pulled from who knows where!

 

Indiana: Clinton 46-42

NC: Obama 56-40

As you can see, I am going with my heart and not my head (or polling averages) on this one. Feel free to add your own predictions in the comments. 

Gotta Get ‘Em

Sometimes, you just sit back and let digby ether ‘em:

 

“This Germany and Japan argument is going to take hold unless Democrats begin to make the proper arguments. As much as the keyboard commandos would like to pretend they are fighting the War Of All Wars, it isn’t. It’s a colonial war like Vietnam, not WWII. And as one of the main forces behind normalizing relations with Vietnam the past decade or so, McCain must know that if we had stayed there it would be violent still.” 

 

Ouch. Will Hillary and/or Barack take McCain on over 100 years on their respective morning shows tomorrow? Seems to me Dem primary voters might want to see some aggression on one of the first pitched battles of the general election where we are on offense.

Last Day of Classes

The Spectacle

Mark Halperin’s man I wish I could be like Matt Drudge site succinctly much sums up the mood of the traditional media today. Right now it screams: OBAMA CUTS WRIGHT LOOSE. The breathless euphoria that has washed over the national political media is palatable. Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopolous are undoubtedly playing the “I told you so” card on the DC cocktail party circuit for their shameful debate performance in Philly. Disgusting.

Uh Oh

America?

We Are Democrats

Image from digby who has always managed to lift my spirits about the Democratic nominee’s chances in November. The numbers I really want to see is the percentage of those self-identifying young republicans who were once Rudy! supporters. 

sorry

It appears that my recent post about Nud Pob has produced a massive influx of customers and has caused the restaurant to  temporarily close its doors for “maintenance.”  Either that or Gordon saw what the kitchen looked like and decided to “shut it down.”