Down the rabbit hole

If you thought American "elections" couldn't get more surreal than that absurd flag-pin interrogation last week that ABC called a Democratic "debate," get a load of this Hillary Clinton ad running today in Pennsy.

Good Christmas list

But her support of this was uncalled for, I think. I don't see anyone persecuting Christians in America. If anything, it's the other way around.

Awesome first lady in waiting

Michelle Obama has struck me in every interview as being smart and unpretentious. She hit the nail on the head again in this interview with MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski

When Brzezinski related a personal anecdote about an African American flight attendant who had said Sen. Obama couldn't win "because he's black," the candidate's wife sympathized.

"That's right. That's the psychology that's going on in our heads, in our souls, and I understand it," she said. "I know where it comes from. You know, and I think that is one of the horrible legacies of racism and discrimination and oppression."

But she's confident husband Barack will overtake frontrunner Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, even though Clinton polls higher in African American communities.

"Black Americans will wake up and get it," Obama said. "But what we're dealing with in the black community is just the natural fear of possibility. When I look at my life, the stuff that we're seeing in these polls is played out my whole life: always been told by somebody that I'm not ready, you know, I can't do something, my scores weren't high enough."

(Flickr pictr by lynnereneephoto)

Trifecta: Yet another clever girl -- two more, in fact

Maybe we're a bigger force for leadership than the mainstream mindset imagines.

Even I am warming up to Sen. Hillary Clinton, even though it still is irrationally distasteful to me to have another family dynasty designated to resume White House duties. But how prescient was she in May in an interview including Robert Murray, the owner of a Utah coal mine where six trapped miners are missing, to say it's time for a president (her) who is "pro-labor and will appoint people who actually care about workers' rights and workers' safety"?

Murray's bungling banter is truly mind-boggling, but it probably seemed normal to most viewers because this exchange was on Fox not-News.

"Bob, do you view this rhetoric as pro-labor, anti-business, what?" (Neil) Cavuto asked Murray.

...Murray responded, "I view it as anti-American. These people should -- are misleading the American worker then they talk about jobs. These are the people advocating draconian global warming conditions that are going to drive American jobs to foreign countries and raise electric rates for everybody on fixed incomes."

... Murray also testified before Congress two months ago that his safety record with all of his mines "is one of the best in the coal industry anywhere."

In a testy exchange with Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., Murray said a story reporting two of his Ohio mines showed injury rates a fourth higher than the national average was "propaganda" by a mine union.

"You are flat out wrong," Murray told Boxer when she raised the story in the Columbus Dispatch saying Murray's mines have the biggest fines against him versus any other mine in Ohio.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration has cited Murray's mine in central Utah with more than 300 violations since January 2004, including 118 "significant and substantial" violations that are considered serious enough to cause injury or death.

Murray, who testified against regulation of the energy industry as part of effort to combat global warming, said the changes to the coal industry would cause losses of high-paying mining jobs and would be "extremely destructive" to the nation.

Yeah, I'm sure right now those six fated miners and their families are so thankful for their "high-paying" mine jobs. They might clear a whole $1,500 a month after taxes. Must be grateful.