Do you remember all the yellow ribbon "Support Our Troops" bumper stickers? Around the beginning of the Iraq War, I noticed hundreds and hundreds of these stickers on the road.  No big deal.  I understood the outpouring of support, and even though I did not display one myself, I felt solidarity with anyone wanting our troops to remain safe. 

Today when I drive, I see no ribbons, no "Support Our Troops" anything.  And I live in Jacksonville, Florida, home to a gigantic Navy base.  We also have a republican city council, a republican mayor, and republicans representing our city in the state legislature. In a city with thousands of self-identified conservatives who supported the troops in the past, I wonder, what's happened to my city?  I don't remember seeing a single sticker in the last year.  Why the change? Right now, more troops are overseas than at any time in our history.  And this year, Obama might add 40,000 troops to Afghanistan. Don't our troops need an outpouring of support now as much as ever?

Also, consider the way in which Obama has fought both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. As the Commander-in-Chief, he operates the military in much the same way as Bush.  He listens to the same people, and appears to have  the same strategic goals  So why the huge decline in bumper-sticker displays? What monumental change took place that changed the minds of thousands of drivers to remove their publicly displayed statement of support for our military?

I suspect the drivers of these automobiles never really supported the troops, but instead supported a war and a president whose ideological perspective aligned with their moral prejudices. And I further suspect the drivers of these automobiles still do not understand the irony of displaying a sticker that encourages people to "support" troops while simultaneously supporting a pointless, unwinnable war that continues to send these troops to their deaths.

Why did Palin quit?  If you know, then stop what you're doing, and call the first news channel you think of, and they will no doubt hire you as a political analyst, because nobody on earth can explain this decision.  So, let's speculate.  What are some possible reasons Sarah Palin resigned, er, "stepped aside" from the governorship?

1. She wants to start her own theme park: Sarahwood. The park will feature a rollercoaster with one giant free fall, and a helicopter ride that lets you shoot wolves from a safe distance.  Bring the camera for when you reach the top of the Ferris wheel; you can see Russia.

2. She accepted a new, secret mission.  And remember, Sarah declared that she was "wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we're on, that you can't blink."  So this new mission must not be the mission she accepted when she promised Alaska's voters to responsibly govern their state for four years.  There must be a more important mission that now requires her attention. Perhaps Ahmadinejad wants a VP?

3. She needs a break.  Remember that Sarah is a self-proclaimed "pit bull with lipstick," and pit bulls generally avoid confrontations and challenges.

4. She wants to spread Down syndrome.  When, earlier today, Sarah expressed a desire for more "Trigs" in the world, I could not have agreed more, because Down syndrome is just too cute to be reserved for 1 in 800 births.

5. She's tired of being in the media.  Sarah needs a break from the intense media spotlight that comes from governing one of the least populated states that sits several hundred miles from the continental US.

6. She wants to mourn Michael Jackson. Sarah's fond memories of learning the alphabet and her first few numbers from a famous Jackson 5 song left her very sad upon hearing the news of the King of Pop's untimely death.  If only she heard the song before 2003.

7. She wants to become SNL's new Tina Fey. If Sarah can transition into comedy, maybe she could run for Minnesota senator one day.

8. She seeks solidarity with the 25 million unemployed Americans. What better way to show commitment to improving your country's economic woes by abandoning the post for which you were elected to write a book about yourself?

9. She got knocked up by A-Rod.

10. She's tired of people using her children as a political prop.  In her speech, she complained of this very thing, and then went on to use this to justify her resignation, which is definitely not using her children as a prop.

So why did Palin quit? It had to be one of the above options, and definitely not something like an embezzlement scandal.   I mean, to embezzle something, wouldn't you first have to be able to spell it?

from AP

Iranian authorities have barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices.

How unfortunate that John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman publicly urged Obama to take a stronger stand against the current illegitimate Iranian regime.  Even though they failed to influence Obama, whose language has so far focused on respecting human rights inside Iran during the uprising, they were able to create a small echo chamber among conservative voices on AM radio, FOX News, and elsewhere. Now, Ahmadinejad can rightly include America in his criticism of foreign powers supporting the demonstrators and in his rationale for banning foreign media organizations from inside Iran. Before last week, when McCain and Graham had not made their rounds on Sunday talk shows, Ahmadinejad could only cite Britain as the foreign power aligned with protestors, and it did not appear to do much good, as thousands of Iranians continued to march and protest and chant into the night.  Now, a week later, we see headlines like this: "Iran pledges 'crushing' response to US critiques."

Perhaps Obama, McCain, or any US politican's choice of words did not have much to do with yesterday's decision to suppress international journalists inside Iran, but it does show how fragile the system of reporting inside Iran is, and the level to which its desperate leaders are willing to manipulate words from foreign political officials in order to justify repression and injustice. 

I agree wholeheartedly with McCain on one thing: the election was clearly stolen.   But then again, any thinking person with access to any sort of online media could easily reach that conclusion.  What's wrong with John McCain--and incidentally what was wrong with George W. Bush--is his strategy for acting on these conclusions.  The Iranian uprising has taught us that a democratic revolution can occur independent of US influence.  And for those schooled in the sort of Reagan-era American ethnocentrism that inflated our importance in the world, this simple truth is too big a pill to swallow.   They want to believe that a revolution, especially one on the side of democracy and human rights, requires American influence.  Iraqis, on the whole, probably disagree.  Iranians definitely disagree.  If Iran was influenced at all by America, it was by what happens when religious fanatics hijack your country, wreck the economy, and undermine civil liberties, all the while evoking foreign threats as justification.