Putting New Hampshire in perspective, a commenter at Street Prophets pointed out early last night,

With about 10-11% reporting...Hillary has more than twice as many votes as McCain...Obama has far more than twice what Romney has...Edwards is nearing three times Huckabee's numbers...Giuliani's with a handful more than Richardson...Paul has twice Kucinich...[and] Grampa Fred is beating Duncan Hunter by more than 2 to 1!

However… write-in’s are beating Fred.

Open Thread below...

In an op-ed piece for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution entitled "Unfettered 'citizen journalism' too risky", David Hazinski, a former NBC correspondent and associate professor of telecommunications at the University of Georgia, says that

...having just anyone produce widely distributed stories without control can have the reverse effect from what advocates intend. It's just a matter of time before something like a faked Rodney King beating video appears on the air somewhere....Journalism organizations should head that off. Citizen reports can be a valuable addition to news and information flow with some protections:

• Major news organizations must create standards to substantiate citizen-contributed information and video, and ensure its accuracy and authenticity.

• They should clarify and reinforce their own standards and work through trade organizations to enforce national standards so they have real meaning.

• Journalism schools such as mine at the University of Georgia should create mini-courses to certify citizen journalists in proper ethics and procedures, much as volunteer teachers, paramedics and sheriff's auxiliaries are trained and certified.

Um, Mister Hazinski sir? There are just a few bloggers who would like to have a word with you....

Good Monday, everyone. Michael Stickings of The Reaction here, filling in for Mike this week. Here -- for your amusement, edification, and/or distraction -- are some worthy links upon which to click. Go ahead and show some love.

The warmongering right was kneeling down and puckering up over a seemingly friendly WaPo editorial that defended "Gen. Petraeus's credibility" and called his critics "wrong" for claiming "there was no letup in Iraq's bloodshed." (And WaPo's credibility, of which there seems to be nothing left? Ah, well...)

Ron Beasley of Middle Earth Journal responds with the blistering truth: "the ethnic cleaning in Baghdad is nearly complete." Indeed. Whom do you kill when there is no one left to kill?

Zeno of Halfway There argues that the apparent decline in civilian violence is a result of the abandonment of U.S. policy: "Instead of insisting on a strong coalition central government in Baghdad, the administration is now allowing local militia groups to take over in different regions. Once these militia 'win,' the violence declines." Meanwhile, U.S. troop deaths are up in 2007 relative to 2006.

Speaking of the troops, Sensen No Sen's PBI examines recent recruiting trends and finds that the Iraq War and Occupation (my term) is being waged primarily on "the backs of the poor and the uneducated, supplemented by mercenaries."

Speaking of those mercenaries, what more can be said about the Blackwaters of the world? Well, see The Unapologetic Mexican. (And I would add, thinking back to my Straussian studies in political philosophy, that Machiavelli wasn't terribly enthusiastic about the use of mercenaries either, and he was awfully realistic about the dangers associated with occupying foreign territories. Maybe he was onto something. Too bad the neocons, who claim links to Strauss, never got the message.)

Speaking of history, political thought, and the warmongering right, it seems that yet another cheerleader has gone over to Iraq and come back with delusions confirmed. This time it's crazy "historian" V.D. Hanson, and Indiana University's Ed Burmila lets him have it at Gin and Tacos.

Over at The Duck of Minerva, Rodger Payne of the University of Louisville addresses Obama advisor, former Pentagon official, and Harvard human rights scholar Sarah Sewall's defense of "the new counterinsurgency".

Finally, my good friend and Reaction co-blogger Carol Gee has a wonderful post up at her site South by Southwest on women and leadership. Hillary Clinton, like her or not, has been taking a sexist beating from many of her more loathsome detractors, but the U.S., like it or not, is well behind much of the rest of the world when it comes to women in politics.

For tips, recommendations, and comments, contact me at mjwstickings [at] yahoo [dot] ca.

(guest blogged by Bill W.)

(Photo courtesy of Burma Digest)

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The pro-democracy protests in Myanmar have been going on for weeks as the Buddhist monks and their supporters have pitted themselves against Myanmar's ruling junta in a country almost completely devoid of freedom as we know it. While the reports vary, things have taken a turn for the worse since yesterday as riot police have begun firing tear gas, beating protesters in the streets, and arresting hundreds of the monks. CNN reports violence and shots fired, and the AFP is currently reporting that "At least four people including three Buddhist monks were killed."

Police opened fire and baton-charged protesters at the Shwedagon pagoda in Myanmar's main city, but later some 1,000 monks regrouped and paraded through the streets, to the delight of thousands of onlookers.

They roared approval for the monks and shouted at security forces: "You are fools! You are fools!"

Burma Digest Magazine is a great blog that has been keeping up with all of the latest developments, news stories, pictures, and YouTube videos people have been sneaking out of the country and posting as Myanmar has tight internet controls.

Chicago Tribune:

There is no single leader. There is no agreed schedule. Organizers aren't even certain where everyone is supposed to gather, let alone use the restroom. The only thing that is known for sure is that thousands of protesters are boarding buses at churches, colleges and community centers across the country this week, headed for this tiny dot on the map of central Louisiana.[..]

Yet this will be a civil rights protest literally conjured out of the ether of cyberspace, of a type that has never happened before in America-a collective national mass action grown from a grassroots word-of-mouth movement spread via Internet blogs, e-mails, message boards and talk radio.

Jackson, Sharpton and other big-name civil rights figures, far from leading this movement, have had to scramble to catch up. So, too, has the national media, which has only recently noticed a story that has been agitating many black Americans for months.

As formidable as it is amorphous, this new African-American blogosphere, which scarcely even existed a year ago, now comprises hundreds of interlinked blogs and tens of the thousands of followers who within a matter of a few weeks collected 220,000 petition signatures-and more than $130,000 in donations for legal fees-in support of six black Jena teenagers who are being prosecuted on felony battery charges for beating a white student.

Color of Change is certainly one of the blogs leading the protests. They have a petition you can sign to support the Jena6

I'm not a big fan of the electoral college system, but this article doesn't make me feel better about amending it.

The New Yorker:

At first glance, next year's Presidential election looks like a blowout. But it might not be. Luckily for the incumbent party, neither George W. Bush nor Dick Cheney will be running; indeed, the election of 2008 will be the first since 1952 without a sitting President or Vice-President on the ballot. At the moment, survey research reflects a generic public preference for a Democratic victory next year. Still, despite everything, there are nearly as many polls showing particular Republicans beating particular Democrats as vice versa. So this election could be another close one. If it is, the winner may turn out to have been chosen not on November 4, 2008, but five months earlier, on June 3rd.

Two weeks ago, one of the most important Republican lawyers in Sacramento quietly filed a ballot initiative that would end the practice of granting all fifty-five of California's electoral votes to the statewide winner. Instead, it would award two of them to the statewide winner and the rest, one by one, to the winner in each congressional district. Nineteen of the fifty-three districts are represented by Republicans, but Bush carried twenty-two districts in 2004. The bottom line is that the initiative, if passed, would spot the Republican ticket something in the neighborhood of twenty electoral votes-votes that it wouldn't get under the rules prevailing in every other sizable state in the Union.

If you haven't seen it already, take a look at the video "Hacking Democracy". (h/t Todd for link)

NEWSWEEK:

It’s hard to say which is worse news for Republicans: that George W. Bush now has the worst approval rating of an American president in a generation, or that he seems to be dragging every ’08 Republican presidential candidate down with him. But According to the new NEWSWEEK Poll, the public’s approval of Bush has sunk to 28 percent, an all-time low for this president in our poll[..].

While the poll has some high marks for Clinton, it's not all good news. Though the New York senator and former first lady aims to project an aura of inevitability that she will win the Democratic nomination, Obama beats the leading Republicans by larger margins than any other Democrat: besting Giuliani 50 to 43 percent, among registered voters; beating McCain 52 to 39 percent, and defeating Romney 58 percent to 29 percent.

Like Obama, Edwards defeats the Republicans by larger margins than Clinton does: the former Democratic vice-presidential nominee outdistances Giuliani by six points, McCain by 10 and Romney by 37, the largest lead in any of the head-to-head matchups. Meanwhile, Sen. Clinton wins 49 percent to 46 percent against Giuliani, well within the poll's margin of error; 50 to 44 against McCain; and 57 to 35 against Romney.

Think Moderate: President Bush lies (again) about the troop 'surge'

d r i f t g l a s s: Please, I am begging you. Begging. Keep defending Alberto Gonzales! Keep regurgitating GOP talking points many Friedmans after the facts have consigned them to the compost heap of history.

INSTAPUTZ: Wingmutts accuse captured Brits of 'cowardice' and even cite the GENEVA CONVENTIONS!....and they're beating the war drums

Norwegianity: How a bogus letter became the case for War

Sic Semper Tyrannis 2007: A couple more BUSHCO flacks experience eleventh-hour conversions. Take note of both the accuracy of their present analysis and the egregious crap that they've been shoveling until now.

HOLY CRAP: The Conservative Weather Channel...Sexual and religious addictions aren't strange bedfellows...Have you ever had unkind thoughts about L. Ron Hubbard?...Beware The Workplace Religious Freedom Act...The right to worship, or not...Mr.Deity, and the signs from god...Bible Study for Atheists...Top Ten Courses offered by Pat Robertson's Law School...God Debate: Sam Harris vs. Rick Warren...Religious Right fat cats bankroll legal crusade against church/state separation...It's Stem Cell Time...Did the Red Sea Part? Fuhgeddaboudit!

Shakespeare's Sister has moved over to Shakesville

Ice Station Tango on the Obama-Clinton preach-off in Selma, Alabama.

Mother Jones: It's not the Internet that's killing newspapers. It's the equity-chasing investors and their friends at the FCC who have put outsize profits before a free press.

David E is a little, um, "worried" about the Cheney's health. Wonkette wins the hyperbole headline award, though. And Local Crank suggests we need a cuddly anime version of the Vice President.

Off the beaten path, Wacky Middle East Wars Edition: Live from Tehran's "The Insider" is beating around the Bush. And some real Iranians hold a flickr snow war, complete with UN representation!
--
Blue Gal
http://bgalrstate.blogspot.com

First off, congratulations to New Orleans for beating the Eagles Saturday. This fan is certainly happy too...FOX really enjoyed her and I'm wondering if all the children that watched the game were as appalled as I was at their focus on that dastardly t-shirt. Why did they leave it up there for all the homeschoolers to see? I believe the PTC (because our children are watching) should immediately file whatever it is that they file and demand justice for our kidz. This was a decision made by the producers to air this graphic display of profanity and I AM OFFENDED and need JUSTICE...

Horgan has more photos and some video...