This is what I’ve been looking for:  “In Speech McCain Denies he’s Bush III”.

“You will hear from my opponent’s campaign in every speech, every interview, every press release that I’m running for President Bush’s third term,” McCain plans to say. “You will hear every policy of the President described as the Bush-McCain policy.

Yup.  You can, indeed, count on that Senator McPander to Bush.

This is WONDERFUL NEWS.  Now we’ve got ‘im where we want ‘im:  McVerbTense says:  “I’m not Bush’s third term!”  To which the Democratic Party, its nominee, the progressive blogosphere and anyone who doesn’t want to see more insanity in the White House respond:  “Yes, you are!”

And, what’s McKeatingFive say?  “No, I’m not!”  

To which we respond, “Well, actually, yes you are!”

And, from there, it’s just turtles all the way down.

Forcing McHuggyBush to get into a circular argument-cum-whine about the degree to which he’s a shameless suck-up to the Worst President Ever is an argument that we can, and should, take all the way to November.  “Bush’s Third Term” needs to be repeated ad infinitum for the next 4 months.  Keep this in mind.

Mu . . .

 For all my (myriad) frustrations with the Democratic Party, sometimes they get it right correct:  my home state’s premier progressive blog, Left in Alabama, will be live blogging from this year’s Democratic National Convention in Denver.  

Here’s “mooncat’s” announcement (hot off the presses) of getting word of LiA’s being credentialed to live blog from Denver.

Well, Left in Alabama and about 120 other blogs from around the country.  Things got a bit sticky a few weeks ago.  I don’t know, and frankly don’t care to know, all the inside story on this (several stories here and orange covered that, I think) when some very worthy blogs were frozen-out passed-over  (through inadvertent neglect, I think, not through intentional sinisterness – thus my point about “frozen out” not being the correct term for what happened),  but that’s all been fixed and word’s just come down from on high that LiA and many other great, state-based blogs are now credentialed and going to Denver.

Thanks are in order to many state party leaders, both here in Alabama and around the country — who listened to, and worked with, the people “in the trenches”, their progressive, hard-working, blogging constituents.  They went into action and worked with the blogosphere and the DNC to get this whole kerfuffle worked out, amicably and righteously.  

The moral of the story:  that screw-ups or oversights happen is not the issue; how decision-makers handle, and react to, and fix screw-ups is the issue.  Here, they did well.  Again, thanks are in order to state and national Democratic Party leaders.

Please feel free to give shout-outs to your favorite state-based progressive, Democratic blog.  We’re all in this together.

Mu . . .

Note:  I put a fresh coat of paint on the title of this piece, what with it getting promoted and everything…

. . . to visit a new website / blog:  The Airport Report.  For all of us who buzz about the skies, and have to deal with airport frustrations, The Airport Report is a new site for us.  O.K., disclosure:  I’m a co-creator of it.

It actually started last month, when I was in the Detroit Airport (for the umpteenth time) and just came to the end of my rope about Detroit’s disgusting relationship with those cretins at “Boingo” – in sum, charging outrageous, loan-sharking rates (in my opinion) for internet access at an airport.  I was (once again) livid.  It occurred to me that a website to hail, and rant about, All Things Airports would be good medicine for travelers, both domestic and international.

As for New Jersey, some of my dear Docudharma Friends gave me “what for”; they sort of (good naturedly) lit into me when, back in early April, I lamented a then-upcoming layover at Newark Airport.  Well, my experience there, indeed, ended up being all-that-and-a-bag-of-poo  That was about 4+ weeks ago.  Since then I’ve been back to Japan, and back home again.  

I invite y’all to visit The Airport Report and weigh-in on how you think this nascent site can be improved.  

From a political standpoint, I think that were I a state legislator I’d be introducing a bill to have all airports within the state provide free internet, or lose any state supplemental funding, or something like that.  Too many airports do provide internet as a basic service for me to feel the least bit sympathetic to those airports that don’t.  

As for Newark Airport, well, internet access – and the lack thereof – is the least of it’s problems, I think.

All the best and Have a Good Flight,

Mu . . .

So, Cindy McCain says she’ll NEVER release her tax returns.  Poor Miss Too Rich and Impossibly Blond Cindy McCain, heir to a booze fortune and wantin’ to be First Lady, but, by damn, nobody’s gonna know about MY finances.

The arrogance.  The hubris.  The Republicanism.

See The Video of Cindy sweetly sneering at even the notion that, as a public figure, and as wannabe First Lady, she has any obligation to come clean on her riches.

Wonderful.  What a likable person.

Mu . . .

 I hate Yahoo.

Let’s get that straight.

And, before I go any further, PLEASE don’t tell me stories of this or that “very nice and knowledgeable ‘Customer Service'” rep you once spoke to.  I find this blog phenomenon happening repeatedly:  someone writes something critical of this or that company, then someone else sweeps-in to tell a “happy-talk” story, thinking that that nullifies the original premise — which, of course, it doesn’t.  

It’s as if someone blows the whistle on a bad cop who sexually assaults motorists he pulls over, then someone else comes to the bad cop’s rescue saying, “Be that as it may, he volunteers at Habitat every 3rd weekend!” — as if that has anything to do with the original premise/problem.  So, please, defenders of Yahoo, spare us non-sequitur defenses of this jack-leg company that seems so quick to confuse being on the front-end of the search engine business model to actually being managed by competents.  In other words, just because VHS beat-out Betamax doesn’t mean VHS was better than Beta.  Similarly, Yahoo seems to confuse good market positioning, PR and a healthy does of dumb luck with actual “worth while product/service.”

Oh, and by the way:  Yahoo Shares Tumble.  Heh.

More below the fold.

 It’s the sort of wee hours in Old Bombay (now known as Mumbai) as I write this.  I’m at the Taj Majal Hotel business center (google it) and can look out the window to my left and see the Gateway of India (google it).  I’m about 30 minutes this side of 3 hours at Leopold’s in Mumbai (google it).

I was in Japan three days ago.  Returning from India Monday late night (mumbai to Newark, Newark to Birmingham).

So, here’s the deal:  

  *  Bush is a fool, or worse, but Americans are good eggs, all in all (but damn shame they put/allowed an idiot in charge of their country.

  *  China will soon rule the world, but the Americans, Japanese, Koreans, Indians, Russians and South Americans will . . . eventually, be able to effectively push back.

  More. . .