A diary currently on the recommended list that was on the rec list earlier today centers around an article in the Atlantic Monthly, The Next Slum?, in which the author claims that the mortgage crisis and resulting foreclosures are not the central cause of decline in new American suburban developments; instead, he posits that it is the nature of the homes themselves which is the dominant underlying dynamic behind the decline.

This theory, while potentially interesting, just did not ring true to me right off the bat-- after all, it seems to me that there has been a very strong link between foreclosure and neighborhood decline during this housing crisis.  Then, when I continued on to the rest of the article, I was disturbed by lack of hard evidence supporting his theory, coupled with a tendency toward unsupported, blanket assertions.  

If you look at enough grilled cheese sandwiches looking for the Virgin Mary, you'll eventually find a burn pattern that looks like the Virgin Mary.

I think that's the attitude that race baiting opponents of Hillary Clinton are taking in the Democratic campaign.  In recent days, some of Senator Clinton's opponents are attempting to establish a pattern of racism by her and her campaign.  But since Clinton is not a racist and there's nothing of substance in her record to indicate a pattern of racism, some overeager opponents have resorted to taking statements out of context and crying "racism!"  Like finding the Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich, it takes a special kind of dedication to slice and dice these statements and look at them from just the right angle so that the image of racism appears.

The indisputably great and wise Martin Luther King famously said:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

This dream may never be fully attained because the human race is a flawed, sometimes even superficial race; but at least in our better and more thoughtful moments, we ought to at least strive to meet that ideal of judging our fellow man by the content of his or her character.

Below, I've briefly assembled my thoughts on each of the Democratic candidates* for President.  Unfortunately, as you will see, I have ruled out every single one of them.  

Now I'm not going to stand here and say that all your candidates are teh suck, but honestly, I'm having a tough time seeing the upside in some of these guys and gals... and I have a hunch that I'm not alone in having a secret desire that there may just be room for some heretofore unannounced candidate to enter the field...

Summaries of the candidates, over the fold....

Hall of fame basketball coach and raging madman Bobby Knight is possibly the only man that I'd less rather have as a hunting partner than Dick Cheney:

Lubbock resident James Simpson can be heard telling Texas Tech men’s basketball coach Bob Knight to back away from his house while dove hunting and the two get into a verbal confrontation in a video obtained Wednesday by The Dallas Morning News.

The 8-minute, 51-second video was shot by Simpson, he said, on the morning of Oct. 21 while he was trying to get Knight, the NCAA’s all-time wins leader, and a hunting companion to back away from his property.

[snip]

According to The Associated Press, two people said Knight or his hunting companion hit them with birdshot on two occasions last month. Neither person was injured or required medical treatment. No criminal charges were filed against Knight, and Lubbock police told the AP they wouldn’t seek criminal charges.

http://www.dallasnews.com/...

Today, the emirs of the United Arab Emirates agreed to buy a 5% stake in our nation's largest bank, Citigroup.  

It's not an isolated occurrence.  They're buying a stake in our stock markets.  They're buying Las Vegas casinos.  They're taking a nearly 10% stake in computer chip maker AMD.  They're looking to snap up more real estate on the cheap as our neighbors default on their adjustable rate mortgages.  

Most of these deals have been announced in just the last few months.

But in the end, outsiders can only guess as to  the nature of the holdings of the sovereign funds of the emirs-- there is little transparency.

A few weeks back, you may have missed reports regarding settlement of a pretty significant fraud case regarding illegal kickbacks by artificial joint manufacturers to surgeons:

Four of the nation’s biggest makers of artificial hips and knees have agreed to pay a total of $311 million in penalties to settle federal accusations that they used fake consulting agreements and other tactics to get surgeons to use their products.

Under the settlements, which were announced by the United States Attorney in Newark, N.J., the four companies were charged with criminal conspiracy to violate anti-kickback laws. But they will not be prosecuted if they follow new compliance procedures under federal monitoring for the next 18 months.

"This industry routinely violated anti-kickback statutes by paying physicians for the purpose of exclusively using their products," said the Christopher J. Christie, the United States Attorney in Newark. "Prior to our investigation, many orthopedic surgeons in this country made decisions predicated on how much money they could make — choosing which device to implant by going to the highest bidder."

New York Times, 9/27/2007

An Afghanistan-centric think tank, Senlis Afghanistan, has issued a 110-page report (pdf) on the security situation in Afghanistan.  Naturally, the picture painted is not pretty.

Among its many findings, the report concludes that the security situation in Afghanistan "has reached crisis proportions"; 54% of Afghanistan's landmass hosts a permanent Taliban presence; the insurgency controls "vast swaths of unchallenged territory" and are the "de facto governing authority in significant portions of territory in the south, and are starting to control parts of the local economy and key infrastructure such as roads and energy supply" the Taliban also is "gaining more and more political legitimacy in the minds of the Afghan people"; and so Afghanistan is "in serious danger of falling into the hands of the Taliban".

Meanwhile, our wonderful Commander in Chief apparently spends his days Congress-watching, as if his executive branch duties are all in order to such an extent that he can add additional duties overseeing the calendar of the legislative branch.

In a recommended diary yesterday on DailyKos, Jeffrey Feldman suggests a new game-changing frame for Iraq, based on the fact that if our troops leave Iraq, violence will drop.  "Troops leave, violence drops" are the four words that will change the way the world looks at the Iraq War, according to Feldman.  

Yesterday, the New York Times reported that the FBI, after an investigation into the September 16th incident in Baghdad in which 17 Iraqis were killed by Blackwater security personnel, had concluded that at least 14 of the killings were unjustified.

Today, the State Department revealed that Blackwater employees involved and/or responsible for the massacre may still be working for the State Department in Iraq.

The stock market took a pretty decent haircut today.  What surprises me is that this selloff hasn't come sooner, given the constant barrage of bad news crossing the financial wires the past few days.

Some of the stuff is just outright criminal.

It's hard to pick which Fortune 500 company lost the most credibility in the past few days, but here's a few candidates:

One year ago this month, we were going through another confirmation process, for Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.  Here's what one prominent blogger had to say:

Robert Gates, Bush's choice to replace Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon, is another shoot first crazy neocon.

...

Gates is just another conservative coward.

--Markos Moulitsas, 11/28/2006

Two nights ago, I posted a diary that was highly critical of an article written by Cato Institute energy expert Jerry Taylor, regarding the cost to consumer for electricity to run a plug-in electric vehicle.  Several commenters in that diary sent emails to Mr. Taylor, and yesterday he posted an article in response to my diary.  I give Mr. Taylor credit for responding to the rather pointed criticism from both myself and those who emailed him, because, frankly, many think tank experts would have simply ignored the response of an anonymous blogger.  However, I found his response to be sorely lacking in several respects.  

So before I get to the news of the day, let me clean up some stray laundry, after the fold...

The Special Inspector General on Iraqi Reconstruction [SIGIR] issued its quarterly report on Iraq today.  These reports, unlike Administration dog-and-pony shows such as the Petraeus report in September, provide an honest assessment of our progress in Iraq.  

The report presents a mixed picture.  The security situation, particularly in Anbar and Diyala Provinces, has improved, and troop deaths and attacks on Iraqis are down markedly in recent months.  But a high ranking GAO official says that the attacks are likely down because of ethnic cleansing, particularly in Baghdad (h/t JML9999 from the OND comments).  And 15 of 18 of Congress's statutory benchmarks for Iraq have only been partially met or not met at all, according to the report-- little changed from last quarter's report.  The government, in particular, has met none of its legislative targets.  

Cato Institute "energy expert" Jerry Taylor took on electric vehicles yesterday trying to prove that fuel costs for vehicles with electric engines is greater than fuel costs for gasoline engines.  In the end, however, all Taylor proved was that there's not much "think" in this "tank"... more after the fold...

Not funny:

"This is the world we live in. It's not this happy, romantic-like world where we'll negotiate with this one, or we'll negotiate with that one and there will be no preconditions, and we'll invite (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad to the White House, we'll invite Osama (bin Laden) to the White House. Hillary and Obama are kind of debating whether to invite them to the inauguration or the inaugural ball."

Rudy Giuliani, 10/29/2007

Since Congress seems to be on a binge of censuring people for speech damaging to our country in a time of war, maybe it's worth a look to condemn speech from the top Republican contender for President that basically implies that the top two Democratic candidates for president are tight with the world's #1 terrorist and America's sworn enemy.

A mid-size non-native rodent, the nutria, is causing problems in the Portland Oregon area:

[N]utria are an invasive species in Oregon -- pushing out native muskrats, devouring native vegetation that holds up stream banks, overrunning wetlands and burrowing enough holes to take down entire hillsides.

In fact, several condominiums are perched above the Gresham wetland that more than a dozen nutria call home. The nutria already have eaten the grasses and other plants around the condos, but the bigger problem is the holes they make under the buildings.

"Our neighbor put in a retaining wall to keep the ground from falling into the pond after the nutria ate away all the grasses," said Linneman Station condominium owner Sandy Jones. "When we first moved in, this was all clover. We had nothing but bare dirt after the nutria."

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/...

More news, of perhaps even greater import, after the fold...

I watched all of Rep. Ron Paul's 20+ minute speech at the Family Research Council's "Values Voter Summit" yesterday (video available on c-span.org).  I was intrigued to see how Rep. Paul, a man who has made his name in this election by being the only Republican against the Iraq War, would address this partisan crowd on the subject of Iraq.  After all, Rep. Paul is a man who speaks truth to power, right?  A man who is fiercely independent, correct?

Alas, not.  

Because he only mentioned Iraq once.  One lousy time.  And here's what he said:

We all know we need more border guards but for instance I don't like border guards for our country being sent over to Iraq!  They don't need to be in Iraq, they need to be here, protecting our borders!