Over on the Oleg Asbashain's (a Ukrainian right winger currently living in New York) blog at Pajamas Media, McCain supporters are openly talking about buying guns (and inferring that they intend to shoot Obama supporters with them).

Jay:  My advice is, go to WalMart and buy a gun. Regardless of who wins this election trouble is going to erupt, particularly in urban areas.  Don't carry it around with you like some nut, but keep it in your home in a secure place and learn how to use it to protect yourself and your family.  Here in Baltimore the natives are already getting restless and agitated.It's only going to get worse.

Brad:  Brian, Yes you can buy long guns at Wal*Mart in Washington. I am eye balling a Remington 700 in 7MM for purchase.

Robert G:  Yes I hope that regardless of how the election turns out the Obamanites go ballistic. I would love to mix it up with the gutless punks.  All power to the Party, Hail the Obamination? No."violence begets violence"? We hope se as people become more animal like in thier behaviour and decorum when things don't go their way.

Brian:  You can still purchase guns at Walmart. At least in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, and Texas. Havn't hunted in any other states but I can vouch for those four. My guess would be Wally world sells guns in all but the most fanatical states. If you're in a tradionally red state or a hunting friendly state you can most likely get a gun at Sam's shop. In MA, NY, WA and CA you're screwed. Sorry. Thanks to the liberal's "gun laws" you'll just have to go to the innercity of the nearest metropolis and ask anyone on the street where you can buy a gun. A criminal will be happy to accomodate you. You'll get more firepower for less money than from Wall-mart anyway.

Waldoft writes:  I Have a house full of firearms. I have a Weatherby 270, two 22 cal rifles, three shotguns "12 and 20 gauge" and a glock model 30 45 cal I carry everywhere. I have a conceal carry permit. Trust me, these obamatons are nothing but thugs and thives and crack whores. They are also weak liberal homosexual white men and lazy entitlement minded white women. Obama will lose on 11/4. The Joe the Plumber revelation which exposed Obama for the socialist he is will be his undoing. I plan on being loaded up after 11/4 and in prtection mode. I expect the blacks to riot because of ocurse they are all animals. Let them riot. I am not afraid. Big mistake to attack me is all I can say.

MCPA08:  Personally cant see any reason to vote for obama. Unless you hate America, hate white folks or are just awaiting an even bigger government handout than you've been getting.
Someone said a democracy can only last until enough voters realize they can vote for largess to be awarded to themselves from the public trough and do so. I think unfortunately, we are there. Bye Bye Miss American Pie.

In Conservative America writes:  In this Cesspool/city that averages what? about 60,000 muggings/assaults per week, how did anyone even notice? And how did they ever get a Cop to put down their Corned Beef & OTB forms long enough to fill out a report? REMEMBER: in all of this political mush....No matter how you slice it, it's still Baloney!P.S. If this happened where I live, the Lady would have had a carry permit, and she would have just shot the stupid S.O.B.

Caedmon:  LuK, very true. It is increasingly obvious that liberal/lefties have a predilection for this sort of thing. However, all it will take is a couple of assaults on conservatives who are lawfully carrying concealed weapons and who lawfully defend themselves with said weapons. Once those incidents are publicized, I bet the violent libbies will settle down a bit. If these pukes begin to realize that they run the risk of drawing deadly force in response, they'll think twice.

Check out concealed carry laws in your state.

Barry:  That bunch on the left call themselves americans, Ha Americans are tollerent of others we don't surpress others opinions. They are all a bunch of closet communists, God help if you say something about their great OBOMA what a bunch of bullshit. Let them riot if they lose I got something for um. We know how to handle that kind of thing down here in the south. Ever notice when they riot and burn stuff its mostly in the big city or in their own neiborhoods the know where they can do that shit and where not to. Ya I wish that had been my wife she would have kicked his ass. No cops needed just EMS for that dumb bastard.

Chasmodee:  I personally just registered for my conceal and carry permit so I could fend off the lunatic left after they lose next month.

Anonymous (repeated verbatim by IrishKay):  It is time to put on our armor, lock and load, stand up, get up, and defend this country from socialism! Are we ready? Do we have the fortitude? Or are we too comfy and cozy.  See, what the white democrats don't realize is that they too will be in the line of fire if the black folks lose the election. It's not about democrats and republicans any more, it's about blacks against white people who didn't vote for Obama. White democrats can cry I'm with you all they want, it won't matter, if you're white, your gone!

Parker: I AGREE WITH JAY... NO MATTER WHO IS ELECTED, "CERTAIN HOOLIGANS" - ESPECIALLY, IN URBAN AREAS, WILL BE INTENT UPON RIOTING... DESTROYING OTHER'S PROPERTY... LOOTING... KILLING... RAPING... STEALING, ETC., ETC., ETC.
IT'S GOING TO HAPPEN... BETTER TO BE PREPARED TO PROTECT YOURSELF, FAMILY, AND PROPERTY. I KNOW, I AM. AMERICA WILL EXPERIENCE A "RACE RIOT", NATIONWIDE, SUCH AS IT HAS NEVER SEEN BEFORE.
MAYBE IT'S ABOUT TIME TO GET THIS "RACIAL NONSENSE" SETTLED... ONCE, AND FOR ALL. "LOCK AND LOAD, PILGRIM!"

 

 

Mike Lunsford of Fairfield, Ohio, has a McCain-Palin sign in his front yard...as well as an effigy with an Obama sticker, a Star of David and the word "Husain" drawn on it, hanging from a tree.

Lunsford, who refused to be interviewed on camera, told local reporters that "America is a white, Christian nation" and only white Christians should be allowed to run the country.

Is Lunsford one of the small-town Americans Sarah Palin praises at her rallies?  Does he "get it", in her parlance?

The only thing Mike Lunsford "gets", in my opinion, will be a visit from the Secret Service and FBI.

 

That's right, folks.  The pitbull may have a ready supply of lipstick, but is banned by the McCain campaign from watching television, surfing the internet and reading newspapers.

Because, the campaign has told her, she would get depressed.

Palin has become the ultimate "low information candidate".

But I wonder...is it because seeing yourself vilified in writing (or read from the teleprompter) by 80% of the journalists, commentators and bloggers in the world (including many conservatives) something which would make the supremely confident and blithely righteous Palin rue her decision not to blink before joining the ticket, or is it because she has such a low threshold for processing information they are afraid she couldn't quote an op-ed or news piece?  Or is it that she is as smart as they claim, but are afraid she has an independent streak and will see the error of her ways and stray off-message?

Imagine if the feisty Palin (who only 7 months ago was interviewed without babysitters by Newsweek) read all that has been written and heard all that has been said disparaging the tactics of the campaign which appears to the rest of us, at least, to govern and manipulate her every thought and action?  That's not mavericky, that's puppetry.  Do the people who know and love Sarah Palin best really think she is a tool by nature?  And if she's not, then why does she continue to allow herself to be branded as one?

Bill Kristol was right - the campaign should let Sarah Palin be herself.  But I think what the McCain campaign and the GOP hierarchy fear most is, if they let her be herself, she might end up packing her bags and heading back to Alaska, where she is the decider and can say and do anything she wants.

The McCain campaign is like the Borg.  They are trying to assimilate Palin.  If she is weak, she will succumb.  But if she is a real pitbull - lipstick or no lipstick - she will resist.

 

First, there was Sarah Palin.  Then the revelation that William Timmons, who heads up McCain's presidential transition team, used to lobby for Saddam Hussein.

Now, John McCain has latched on to "Joe The Plumber" as his mascot.  McCain mentioned "Joe" more than a dozen times during the debate at Hofstra University, has invited "Joe" to join him at campaign rallies, and has "helpfully" provided "Joe" with talking points for a string of national television and radio appearances, and now features him in his ads.

Problem is, "Joe" isn't what he originally told Obama, or the press.

He's not undecided; he's a registered Republican who let it drop that he decided who he was going to vote for a while back, and a few years ago was registered with the Ohio Natural Law Party, whose platform includes such novel ideas as ending wars by manipulating the serotonin levels in peoples' brains.

He doesn't make anywhere near $250,000.  He may like the idea of one day owning a business worth $250,000, but the one he has his sights on doesn't even make $250,000 now, so the likelihood of this small business which does mainly local residential work making $250,000 any time in the near future is probably slim, and the possibility that "Joe" may one day buy it even slimmer.

"Joe" hasn't got a plumbers license, and if he's worked in Toledo, has done so in contravention of the law.  "Joe" owes the State of Ohio over $1,100 in back taxes, and currently has a lien on his pre-fab home.

His name isn't even "Joe".  It's "Sam".

Don't get me wrong.  I don't begrudge "Joe" -- I mean "Sam" his dreams of one day getting his plumber's licence, paying off his debts, moving out of the trailer, buying a business and eventually earning over $250,000.  But I wonder what John McCain's economic policies are going to do to help him achieve them?

Gayle Quinnell, 75, didn't just ask John McCain at one of his campaign events if Barack Obama is an Arab.  She has actively pursued the continuation of the myth, admitting to reporters she had 5,000 copies of a document claiming Obama is an Arab for distribution throughout rural Minnesota.

She had the copying done at Kinkos.  Which was founded by Paul Orfeala.  Who is a real Arab (the Los Angeles-born son of Lebanese immigrants).

Paul Orfeala has been cited as one of America's most successful businessmen.  He is now retired from the business world, and serves as a visiting professor at U.C. Santa Barbara and the USC Marshall School of Business.

Orfeala is a registered Republican.  Stick that in your bum bag, Ms Quinnell.

(By the way, his Arabic name is بول أورفاليا‎ (I don't know how that's going to come out on a blog).

When it comes to excellence, I think of people like (Arab) Paul Orfeala and (non-Arab) Barack Obama.  So should we all.

Conservative pundits and journalists in their op-eds are adamant:  Barack Obama must atone for knowing Bill Ayers, the 60s radical turned 90s English professor.  Of course, lots of people know Bill Ayers better than Barack Obama, but that is beside the point.  Bill Ayers, they insist, is an unrepentent terrorist.  IS.  As in still doing whatever he was doing before he figured out that what he was doing was dangerous and ineffective.

I don't know Bill Ayers - never met the man.  But I have read a lot about him, including transcripts of his interviews.  And from what I can tell, Bill Ayers does have regrets.  For one, that people were injured (and three other Weather Underground members killed) in bombings the group which he belonged to carried out.  He may not have built or detonated the bombs; the attacks may have been carried out at times when the group thought the buildings were empty, he may have apologized privately to one or more of the victims, he may have admitted that they were arrogant to believe that destruction of property and accidental loss of life was the way to end the Vietnam war, he may have given himself up to authorities even though there were no charges or warrants against him, he may have gone on to do good works and still sit on the boards of various charities, he may have been named Chicago's "Citizen of the Year" in 1999, but that's all beside the point.  The point is, Bill Ayers knows Barack Obama, and Barack Obama is leading in the polls.  And that is unacceptable.  Bill Ayers isn't the problem - Barack Obama is.

It's tough being Bill Ayers these days.  The reminder that Barack Obama was in his living room once in the mid 1990s must still haunt his every waking moment.  How dare latter day Hillary Clinton backer Alice Palmer take that young interloper from Honolulu via Columbia U to his house and announce him as her political successor.  At least Obama could have had the decency to choose to be introduced to the professional elite of Hyde Park - doctors, lawyers, emeritus professors - in Ayers' house.  But NO, it wasn't Obama's choice, it was Alice Palmer's.  The arrogance of it.

Then to publicly denounce Ayers' actions in the late 60s, when Obama was a chubby eight year old and had no possible knowledge of protesting or Kent State or My Lai or Tonkin or Malcolm X or drinking coffee or what the lyrics of "Maggie's Farm" really mean - how dare he.

It's bad enough that Obama sat in the same room with Ayers (albeit always as part of a large, diverse group)  for a whole almost 40 hours over the past 12 years.  Why doesn't he just leave Bill Ayers' alone?

Obama even had the temerity to say "hello" once when they passed each other on their bicycles.  There should be a law or something.

.

 

 

Just watched Carly Fiorina talking up John McCain's economic "plan" on Fox News.  Being a multi-tasker, at the same time as watching Fiorina, I read a piece tucked away on page 14 of the London Evening Standard about erstwhile Republican supporter Joan Collins throwing her endorsement to Democrat Barack Obama.

Writing about the new Mayor of London, she noted, "I couldn't help contrast Boris's spirited and pithy speech with Red Ken's Leftie mumblings, just as I couldn't help contrast Obama's fresh energy with McCain's bumbling.  The second presidential debate was a no-brainer.  The lisping, obdurate McCain, who looks progressively unhealthier, did what I thought impossible: he made George Bush look human".

The juxtaposition of the cheerleading Fiorina and scathing Collins caught my imagination.  For those who don't know Fiorina's resume', she is a self-made woman.  No question she is smart and articulate.  But I don't see much adversity in her background.  Her father was a lawyer and judge, she went to Stanford and other fancy universities on daddy's dime and armed with a half dozen degrees, went to work at AT&T as a secretary, and worked her way up to become the company's Senior Vice President.  During her tenure at the top, AT&T closed its largest works plant and transferred all residential telephone manufacturing overseas to Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore and China.

In 1993, they moved their operations to Mexico, and exported all the rest of the jobs there.

By 1997, she was Executive Vice President of Lucent Technologies.  Under her supervision, Lucent's stock price took off.  However, a few months after she left Lucent, the company made the first of a string of announcements that it had missed its quarterly estimates, and it was later found the company had used dubious accounting practices.  The company's shares fell from $84 to 55 cents in the space of two years.  They made swingeing cuts to employee pensions and benefits, which resulted in several lawsuits for malfeasance.  Things were so bad that they had to cut power in their headquarters, as well as their Napierville facility, to save money.

What characterized Fiorina's reign as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Hewlett Packard?  7,000 lay-offs, public clashes with the Board, and massive outsourcing to India and China.  (Fiorina renamed outsourcing "right-shoring").  Company profits were down, shares were down, and Fiorina was fired from HP.  Her golden parachute was a $21 million cash payment.  After her departure, the company quickly prospered, overtaking Dell as the top computer maker in the world.

Since her unceremonious dumping in February 2005, she has written a book and done interviews, where she always praises "right-shoring" and promotes the expansion of the H1B visa program for Indian and Chinese workers.  And campaigned for Mr Bumble.

Compare Fiorina's fairly unimpressive record with that of Alexis Colby - or as she is now known, Alexis Morell Carrington Colby Dexter Rowan.  She came from nothing - literally.  She was never a secretary because she doesn't know how to type.  She was such a nobody she wasn't even in the first episode of Dynasty - her character was just a voice and name introduction.  But she rose like a phoenix to take over Colby Oil.  Her husband's corpse wasn't even cold, and she was already fully in charge of the second biggest energy company on national television after Ewing Oil.

She went on to own and seemingly single-handedly operate an art studio, a major newspaper and the elegant Carlton Hotel at the same time as Colby Oil, without batting a false eyelash.  Not only was she captain of her own industries, she was a catalyst for the shoulder pad manufacturers of America, creating thousands of jobs.  She gave sage advice to President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in front of an audience of millions.

We know Alexis is a fighter.  Remember Dominique Devereux?  Who came out on top in that fracas?  And although some disagree, I also think Alexis was the resounding victor in the mud fight with Krystal.

Talk about overcoming adversity, Alexis is Teflon.  She survived assassination attempts by Blake Carrington, Joseph the Butler, Joseph the Butler's son, Joseph the Butler's daughter, her daughter, her sister and Jerry Van Dorn.  She fell 20 stories from a hotel balcony and lived.  She was riddled with bullets in the Moldavian Massacre and walked away.  She drove her car over a bridge and swam out.  She was taken hostage by South American guerillas and talked her way out.  She ran for Governor of Colorado and lost by a whisker, but no matter.  After all, she was Queen of Denver, a much more impressive title in anybody's book.

McCain hints that he might like to appoint Carly Fiorina to a senior cabinet position.  My advice to Barack Obama is to seize the momentum and name Alexis Morell Carrington Colby Dexter Rowan as his economic policy guru.  

 

 

Two things the MSM noted about the last presidential debate (apart from the lack of follow-up questions, Tom Brokaw's inability to keep the candidates focussed and how bored the audience all looked) were John McCain's annoyingly frequent use of "My friends" when addressing people he doesn't know and probably would never choose to hang with, and his and Obama's constant bandying of the term "fundamental differences" without explaining what "fundamental differences" they have on the economy.

Although Americans care more about what the next President of the United States is going to do, than what past administrations have done, I heard little but- what's the line in the movie - "You talk a lot, but you don't tell me nothin'"?   John McCain said not so long ago "the fundamentals" of our economy are strong".  I believe this is supposed to be something politicians say to calm the markets, even though it flies in the face of everything those of us who don't have seven or eight houses see.  Surprise, surprise - that hasn't worked, so maybe it's time our leaders say something that makes sense, not beggars belief.

The "fundamentals" of our economy were abandoned a long time ago.  Over the decades, our political masters, in cahoots with corporations, have gradually chipped away at legislation and left us in a muddle which confounds even freshmen business administration students.  Not just individuals, but government bodies up and down the food chain, have been living on borrowed money and borrowed time, with a succession of quacks (politely referred to as "Treasury Secretaries" and "Economic Policy Advisers") treating downturns with placebos of consumer debt and defence spending.  The other day I checked out a pie chart of the government debt the Bush administration has run up.  Talk about scary, I had to take a Xanax just to finish reading the footnotes.  The same day I read that the famous "debt clock" has run out of numbers.  I went to bed that night and dreamt that I lost my job and had to move in with my parents, sleep in my old (bunk) bed and resume my most hated chore - mowing the steep terraced lawn with the aid of a rope.  It could have been worse.  I might have dreamt that I WAS my parents in the 1930s.  Their reality was more frightening than my worst nightmare - even the one where I was hiding from Godzilla in my old high school locker and was set upon by hundreds of poisonous spiders.

We don't like to talk about Depression because it's depressing.  It takes courage to talk about it.  It takes even more courage to do something about it.  Are you still with me?

Remember after 9/11, when President Bush exhorted us to "go shopping"?  Do you think shopping to stave off economic recession is a good idea?  Isn't that a little self-defeating, like eating chocolate cake on a diet?  Tastes good now, but you pay later.  Yes, yes, I know consumer spending is the so-called "engine of the American economy", but does it have to be?  Did you know that since Bush took office, 70% (gulp!) of our entire economy is consumer spending?  Does anybody else see anything wrong with that?  More to the point, did anybody stop spending beyond their means?  This is a complete no-brainer, but I'm as guilty as you are.  But just because we made mistakes doesn't mean we can't change.  Why aren't manufacturing and exporting the engine?  Why is our economy so one-way, gobbling imports and choking on the dust of our bloated trade deficit, like a faulty vacuum?  We are fully capable of designing and manufacturing desirable, marketable, reliable consumer goods and selling them overseas.  We are probably more capable of exporting green technology than any other country on Earth, but we shun it out of ignorant principle.  When the naysayers poo-poo the idea of "American-made" because of labor costs, I wonder how companies like Renault and Peugeot can continue manufacturing cars in (expensive, unionized) France.  Well, it's simple.  Those companies constantly innovate.  There is demand for their cars all over Europe and elsewhere.  From electric mini-cars to fuel-efficient clean diesel SUVs, these companies produce practical cars for practical buyers - you know - practical people who know that cars are not a fashion statement, they're a means of transportation.  So why can't we resolve that we will demand economical, reliable cars and drive them for five or six years or more before we upgrade?  Would you pay a little more for an American-made car which didn't start having problems after three years on the road and which maybe saved you $20 or $30 a week in gas bills?  I would, if given the choice.

What happened to our train networks?  There surely is demand outside of the New York/Washington corridor.  I remember my first train trip, to visit my grandmother.  We ate ice cream sundaes in the fancy dining car.  It was 1,000 times more enjoyable than crossing my legs in anguish in the car, eventually relieving myself by the side of the highway, because my Dad was in such a hurry to get to our destination, or taking the Greyhound to see Aunt Rose in Phoenix when I had to stuff my money in my underwear and sit next to a smelly letcher for two days and nights.  I know America is vast, but when Air France (I'm not French, by the way, just a coincidence that the French make some of the most technically advanced cars and trains) has announced they are going to introduce 375mph passenger trains all across Europe within 2 years, I wonder why we can't upgrade the tracks which cross-cross our country and do the same?  Especially when commercial jets use so much more energy per passenger, are so much more expensive to maintain and are so unreliable of late?  For Chrissakes, we put the first man on the moon - I don't think I'm the only American who thinks we can also manage to build a decent high-speed rail network.

Here's where I favor Obama's policies - although he hasn't gone into any real detail about his plans for investing in our country's infrastructure, at least "rebuilding our infrastructure" is part of his mantra.  Because when America builds things, we seem to do pretty well.  When the basis of our economy resembles some weird pyramid scheme, we don't.

I was never impressed with Keynes's theories because I know some really rich people, and apart from occasional charitable donations and fundraisers (mostly to impress their really rich friends and have somewhere to wear their new designer duds), they have a tendency to hang on to what they've got.  Of course there are exceptions, but think about it.  What is the former CEO of Lehman Brothers going to do with $350 million?  Give it back to the Treasury to compensate in a minor way for the mess he helped make?  I don't think so...

Americans don't want much.  They don't ask for much.  They need, want and ask for the jobs and security that results from "fundamentally sound" economic government policies, and tangible evidence that "The Greatest Country in the World" is not just a campaign slogan.

27-year-old Chelsea Clinton took to the campaign trail in support of her mother and MSNBC's David Shuster accused her mother of "pimp(ing) her out".   Obama was severely rebuked by the press for letting his daughters appear in a light interview with their parents on "Access Hollywood".

If Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are to be admonished for exposing their children to the harsh glare of the national media in perfectly safe settings, then Sarah Palin should be excoriated.  It's bad enough that she has kept her 7 year old out of school for the better part of the past month, flying back and forth to her mother's campaign events in the Lower 48.  To have little Piper represent her mother at an indoor rally in Anchorage, while Sarah campaigned in California, address the crowd at a rally in Florida and sent out into the crowd, accompanied at one point only by sister Willow, to shake hands in Missouri.  But what she did last night, as reported on the Fox News blog, is reprehensible:

"The GOP Vice-Presidential nominee said at an earlier fundraiser that she would stop some of the booing from the rowdy Philadelphia fans by putting her seven year old daughter, Piper in a Flyers jersey. She said, “How dare they boo Piper!”  The intensity and ferocity of the boos was apparently lessened somewhat by the appearance of Piper on the ice.

But the Flox blogger was generous in his appraisal of the audience reaction to Palin.  I watched the video.  The boos were so loud they roared over the music - which volume was turned up full-blast in an attempt to ameliorate.

I remember my first hockey game.  20 years of attending pro baseball and football games did not prepare me for the crowd's behavior.  And from what I have heard and read, these fans were tame in comparison to the Flyers'.   A Flyers' biographer wrote: "(they have) a reputation as the roughest, toughest, most vocal and unruly fans in sports".  They threw projectiles at the very popular and likeable Beyonce Knowles, and even at Santa Claus.

Using her 7 year old as a literal "human shield" in attempt to reduce the number or loudness of boos she might receive (or number or size of objects which might be hurled in her direction) was a risk that no hockey mom, soccer mom or any other mom I know of should or would take.  It's almost like putting your kid in the middle of the highway in a Teamsters cap and telling your friends, "Nobody would dare run over her...".

Thank goodness Piper Palin received no worse than a chorus of boos.  But as another blogger suggested, how might this hostile reception affect young Piper psychologically?  Children need protection from harm - not only physical, but emotional.

Like the Philadelphia Flyers' fans, I give Sarah Palin's appearance last night, in her choice to use her little girl in this ultra-cynical way, a big thumbs-down.

John McCain, I believe, is a history buff, citing "Smyrna" (about the 1922 Greek-Turkish conflict) and "The Coldest Winter" (about the Korean War) at a July fundraiser as among his recent favorite reads.

Anyone who appreciates World History, as John McCain surely does, should know better than to tempt repeating its darker episodes.

"The Grapes Of Wrath" and "Of Mice And Men" may have been novels, but my parents and grandparents bore living witness to their plots.  The Great Depression, a result of unbridled corporate greed, loose regulations and easy credit, was bad enough.  The Dust Bowl, a result of poor land management (environmental) practices, compounded it.  By 1940, between 2.5 and 3 million people were displaced from their homes, while between 100,000 and 250,000 Americans died from starvation and suffocation.

Yet John McCain, a fervent deregulator, corporatist and proponent of tax breaks for the rich, ignores the growing income disparities between the working poor/middle class and the ultra-wealthy in America.  His supporters' (and running mate's) exhortations of "Drill, Baby, Drill" and his lack of detail on his alleged renewable energy policy shows he is out of touch when it comes to the environment.  He hasn't even turned up for the last 8 Senate votes on extending renewable energy tax credits.  In fact, on December 13th last year and again in February of this year, he skipped critical votes to invest in renewable energy.  In all of his votes from 2001 to 2005, he voted against renewable energy.  His votes during the 90s were even less environmentally-friendly.  In 1994 he voted to let coal states bypass the Clean Water Act.  In 1996 he voted to gut nuclear waste disposal laws.  In 1996 he voted against cleaning up toxic waste sites.  In total, McCain has voted against clean and renewable energy over 50 times since the 90s, and voted with Big Oil 42 out of 44 times in the past 15 years.

"We Are Not Afraid" by Philip Dray chronicled in detail the 1964 murders of James Chaney, a 21 year old local civil rights worker, and New York Freedom Summer volunteers Andrew Goodman and Michael Shwerner, in Meridien, Mississippi, and the resultant trial.

I was in Mississippi during the summer of 1964 with my parents - a child witness to the indignities and injustices of the time and place.  Anyone with the most basic sense of decency could see that things were terribly wrong, even if they didn't see any lynchings or cross-burnings.  The "white-only" businesses and public drinking fountains; the open epithets and taunts; the disapproving glares; the television and radio broadcasts of KKK rallies.  These images still sear my memory.  I sincerely thought we had made so much progress in the last 40 years that I might never see them again in America.  Call me "naive", but I had the opportunity to vote for Tom Bradley, cheer for Doug Wilder, and even though we are diametrically opposed on some aspects of foreign policy, laud the promotion of the ultra-savvy Condoleeza Rice to Secretary of State.  I thought we had turned the page forever.

So my heart sunk when I watched YouTube videos of McCain/Palin appearances where the kinds of inferences and outright race baiting the Senator from Arizona previously vowed to avoid were used to whip up the kind of hatred I remember from those televised Klanfests.

John Lewis, whom McCain cited as one of three people he most admires when asked by Rick Warren, reminded us yesterday that the kind of frenzy whipped up by such rhetoric directly or indirectly resulted in the bombing of a black church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1968, and the murder of four innocent children who were younger than I was when my eyes indelibly opened four years prior.

The chants, the invocations, the cries of "kill him" and "hang him high" unchallenged by the scheduled speakers, reminded one 89-year-old former member of the French Resistance of the reactions of the audience at an anti-Jewish Petain rally in 1940.  I wonder if Senator McCain has ever read "Choices In Vichy France: The French Under Nazi Occupation" by John Sweets (recommended at West Point), or "Vichy France And The Jews" by Michael Marrus and Robert Paxton?  Has he ever read "The Racial State: Germany 1933-1945" by Michael Burleigh, which "The Historian" notes "serves as a sobering reminder that overwhelming historical evidence is the best defence against recurring bouts of historical amnesia"?  Or "Between Dignity And Despair: Jewish Life In Nazi Germany" by Marion Kaplan of which Deborah Lipstadt wrote in The New York Times, "Simply put, genocidal violence can have its genesis in the smallest expression of prejudice and hatred."?

If Senator McCain is the voracious student of historical texts he claims to be, then what is the deal?  Is he one of those people who collects books just to show off, like the proverbial illiterate who buys the entire set of the Encyclopedia Britannica?  Does he have trouble absorbing the information contained in the books he reads?  Does he assimilate the lessons but dismiss them?  Or, as I suspect, is he so desparate to sit in the big chair in the Oval Office that he will do and say anything, with scant regard for the lessons of history, to achieve that goal?

Here's a last minute plea to John McCain: I know you're busy campaigning, and there are only a few weeks until Election Day.  I don't expect you to have time to read much except the polls before then.  But do yourself and all of us a favor and read the books I have listed here, and enjoin your running mate to do so also.  Win or lose, you will be personally enriched by the experience moreso than any political victory.