Hardly a day goes by that some conservative with a website doesn't work themselves into a tizzy over some benign or obscure cultural item. It wouldn't be worth anybody's time to mock each such episode, but this one struck close to my heart. You see, by happenstance the otherday I stumbled across NEPALibWatch.com (That's North Eastern Pennsylvania Liberal Watch) attacking something near and dear to me: Rob and Big!

The proprietor of NEPALibWatch is upset that MTV would pollute young minds by "Promot[ing] decay and degeneration by bringing inner city thug values to kids who don’t live the thug life."

I caught some of the sunday shows today, and I see that the press is fighting hard to 1) protect their darling McCain and 2) keep this race close (blowouts don't push paper, people!).

Here's a video some of the talking heads made after Obama's hugely successful overseas trip.

Atrios nailed this a while ago. I just "updated" the audio (crudely, at that).

I just wanted to pass along this map of Obama's field offices in Pennsylvania.

That has a nice look to it, doesn't it?

Here are McCain's offices:

Pennsylvania & Ohio Regional Headquarters
240 North 5th Street
Suite 340
Columbus, OH 43215
Office number is 614-441-8097
Office fax is 614-222-2530

Local Office:
112 State Street
Harrisburg, PA, 17101

So We share an office with Ohio located in Columbus, and our "local" office is in Harrisburg?

Ambitious, huh?

Yes, this is an official campaign poster.

I'd sooner believe that McCain is Jesus than that he offers a "wise" foreign policy.

Meanwhile, Obama is in Israel. From M.J. Rosenberg at TPM Cafe:

I just talked to a friend who saw Obama in Israel. I asked him what his friends in the Israeli media are saying. "What are they saying? They are saying that he's the next President. And they think he's the smartest American politician they have seen yet."

I was recently alerted to a sense of the congress resolution that has been referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs that seems unnecessarily provocative. The bill, H.CON.RES.362, calls upon President Bush to escalate the tensions with Iran. It's mostly toothless- it isn't legally binding and is mostly uncontroversial, as it calls for increasing diplomacy. However, it seems to me to be a bad idea on two counts. First, it seems an unneccessary provocation that could undermine future diplomatic negotiations. More importanlty, however, subsection 3 reads:

(3) demands that the President initiate an international effort to immediately and dramatically increase the economic, political, and diplomatic pressure on Iran to verifiably suspend its nuclear enrichment activities by, inter alia, prohibiting the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products; imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran; and prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials not involved in negotiating the suspension of Iran's nuclear program;

Emphasis mine. Isn't this a blockade? Isn't a blockade an act of war?

I'm doubtful that even Bush and Cheney would launch an attack on Iran by the end of their term, but why give them any excuse?

Unless you've been living in a hole for the past few days, you've heard that Sen. Obama is travelling overseas to a number of countries, including Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama has been meeting with generals, politicians, diplomats, and American soldiers. The trip is non-partisan, as these junkets always are, and GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel (along with Sen. Reed, a Democrat) accompanied Obama.

The trip has been a roaring succes so far, and a a couple interesting things have resulted. Most importantly, Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki explicitely endorsed Obama's 16 month withdrawal plan.

Obama's plan leaves him room to be flexible in response to situations on the ground, but the bottom line is that it shifts the objective from staying to leaving. Why anyone in their right mind would believe that occupying Iraq with 150,000 troops for an indefinate period of time serves the strategic interests of the United States is beyond me.

It's summertime and the living is easy, so blogging isn't my top priority. While I'm busy, please entertain yourself.

I would also recommend reading the blog Glomarization, a new blog by an astute local. Philadelphia is expanding its blogopoly.

Is there a bigger joke in the US Senate than Larry Craig?

I'll be posting a bit more in depth about the offshore drilling gambit later, but in the meantime, please don't jerk anyone's nozzle.

Via TPM.

I don't know what to make of this pay-to-play on video tape story. On the one hand, it's entirely unsurprising, as this kind of thing happens all the time. Access is currency in Washington (and everywhere elese, actually.) On the other hand, it was striking to see it so bluntly on videotape, particularly as Payne was selling not just access, but literally selling foreign policy. The most surprising thing about this affair, however, is that the press actually went out and did the investigation in the first place.

Of course, it was a foreign paper, so I shouldn't be too surprised.

But man, there's not much in this world that you could give me to get me to donate $250,000 to the George W. Bush presidential library. I might send them a free copy of The Pet Goat, though.

There are some very big differences on some very big issues at stake in this election. From Iraq to healthcare, energy to education, and everything in between, the differences are stark. One issue that receives considerably less attention, however, is a little thing called net neutrality. It's an interesting issue in a number of ways because while somewhat technical in nature, it exemplifies some of the more fundamental differences between the two presidential candidates.

First, here is a brief video to explain what net neutrality is, and why it's important.

Barack Obama supports net neutrality, while John McCain opposes it. Well to be fair, McCain has flipped back and forth a few times, but mostly he opposes it. This is a great example of the divergent approaches to policy that Obama and McCain take, however. Obama explicitly expresses support for net neutrality on his Technology issues page. It is one component of an impressively comprehensive federal technology (specifically communications and information access) policy.