What links Obama and Huckabee? They are both excellent public speakers.

I am on record as declaring that HRC's post-hostage crisis presser was "not hateful." High praise indeed, no? But this in all fairness was what I felt. Usually, I start cringing three words in to one of her speeches, sometimes sooner. What is it exactly that seems to affect me so deeply? I continually obsess over this, primarily because (a) I feel I shouldn't dislike her with the intensity that I do and my own dislike perplexes me; (b) it's likely that I am going to have to vote for her in the general and, even more likely that she'll win so I'd like to work through this dislike and come to some sort of accommodation with the idea of her.

[Warning: this post, as most others on the topic of "Hillary hatred" is based on subjective truths, truths of perception.]

Apart from what has been said already, I think the unfolding news about the planting of questions by HRC or her campaign has two interesting aspects. First, we want to believe that there is in fact a material and philosophical difference between the dems and the Bush administration. Second, the planted questions in the case of this particular campaign -- Hilary's instead of Obama's or another's -- does reinforce the contrast between Hilary and Bill and is in fact doing her no favors.

[fleshed out below]

Senator Craig will, I suspect, be gone within 48 hours. The scandal is above the fold not simply for the usual reasons -- "gay sex!" "sex in the Senate!" "pages (again)!" "Republican hypocrisy on all this faith-and-values nonsense!" "Republican hypocrisy on Clinton!" -- but also because the sex, or the promise of sex rather, was located in an airport bathroom.

My thoughts on why this may be the case after the jump.

Of course, the new rules aren't really about protecting the integrity of elections. Only one Florida supervisor of elections allowed outside experts to test his voting system security. And when Ion Sancho's hackers discovered they could alter the outcome of an election and wipe out all trace of the tampering last year, it was a huge embarrassment to the Secretary of State's office. Instead of trying to fix the flaws, state officials and Diebold -- a maker of voting machines -- went after Sancho, disparaging his findings and suggested that he ought to be tossed from office. (Fred Grimm)

The latest development in the new expert culture: Five-day training courses trump university degrees! If outside "computing experts" hack your Diebold machines and show that election results can be entirely destroyed, take steps to protect Diebold and get new experts!

Full text of an article from the Miami Herald below.

"Streamtime is a loose network of media activists dedicated to assist local media to get connected. Streamtime uses old and new media for the production of content and networks in the fields of media, arts, culture and activism in crisis areas, like Iraq."

This is my breezy `Extreme Makeover' theory of the U.S. presidency in the early 21st century (aka 'not creationism but re-creationism').