Nathan

Op-Ed Columnist - High Anxiety in the Mile High City - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com: "“What is that feeling in the air?” I asked him.

“Submerged hate,” he promptly replied."

How about a fractious nature simply because of the people involved? Kudos to Dowd for reporting what she sees and feels about the nature of this convention, but let us be frank: there are many competing priorities shifting around a mile high right now. Priorities like healthcare, education and even some of the basest of priorities: Do we step forward with race equality or female progression?

Well, does it have to be either/or for everyone? Can this party not, somehow, figure out how to recognize their varied nature (that it in fact mimics the country), embrace the realness of it and the passion involved and move forward together?

Otherwise the alternative of course is more of the same: white male, extremely rich people with fake laughs and fake speeches and fake stories taking our country further into the rubble.

Let us not let the vapid win this one too. Please. I have a child on the way and while Senator Obama may not be the savior he is more than 100% better than his empty suit opponent in this case. Isn't it that simple?

Small: The New Cool? / Behold, the shrinking car, home, your flabby flesh. Yay for the recession!: "Ironic, I thought, how quickly Americans' emblems of cool first-world excess, of waste and wealth and war, flip right over into symbols of wrongheadedness and empty cultural pathos. I mean, isn't it?"

Incredibly so.

Report Says Fire, Not Explosion, Felled 7 W.T.C. - NYTimes.com

Well that solves it now can we move on to figuring out who and why immediately after the anthrax attacks that Iraq was fingered by 4 government officials to ABC news?

The Ivins Dossier - WSJ.com: "If the FBI is right that Ivins really was the mad scientist they'd been looking for, it comes as a major relief. Assuming the anthrax did originate domestically, as now seems probable, it would mean that weaponized anthrax isn't an instrument of international terrorism -- at least not yet.

To resolve any remaining doubts, independent parties need to review all the evidence, especially the scientific forensics. The FBI has so far only released its summary of the evidence, along with interpretative claims. This is an opportunity for Congress to conduct legitimate oversight, instead of the usual partisan showtrials. After so long and so many missteps, the FBI's declaration of victory needs to be tried in the court of public opinion -- not least to restore public confidence in its credibility."

My thoughts exactly. Via.

Russian Troops Enter Rebel Enclave - NYTimes.com: "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice issued a strongly worded statement Friday. “We call on Russia to cease attacks on Georgia by aircraft and missiles, respect Georgia’s territorial integrity, and withdraw its ground combat forces from Georgian soil,” Ms. Rice said in a statement released by the State Department."

No offense Ms. Rice but I am not sure that anyone is listening to you or any of the Bush cabal any more and not simply due to your pending extinction, but because you have lost all credibility.

Op-Ed Columnist - Learning to Speak Climate - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com:

"This is the opinion page. And my trip with Denmark’s minister of climate and energy, Connie Hedegaard, to see the effects of climate change on Greenland’s ice sheet leaves me with a very strong opinion: Our kids are going to be so angry with us one day.

We’ve charged their future on our Visa cards. We’ve added so many greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, for our generation’s growth, that our kids are likely going to spend a good part of their adulthood, maybe all of it, just dealing with the climate implications of our profligacy. And now our leaders are telling them the way out is “offshore drilling” for more climate-changing fossil fuels.

Madness. Sheer madness.

No wonder everyone here speaks climate now — your kids will, too, and sooner than they think."

This give me the chills but not in a good way. Chills of dread. I hope that we really start turning this, our Titanic, around otherwise it does seem like the poor young chap (or lady) shall be bailing water all their lives.

Vital unresolved anthrax questions and ABC News - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

Must read. This has been a disturbing story for me since the very beginning when it seemed our civilization was collapsing. I hope the reporting continues.

The Big Picture | Rules for Living from Nassim Taleb: "Don’t disturb complicated systems that have been around for a very long time. We don’t understand their logic. Don’t pollute the planet. Leave it the way we found it, regardless of scientific ‘evidence’."